Voicethread

Another webtool that is very useful and friendly is Voicethread. Below you will see a tutorial I did in Spanish.




What I like about it:

- It's easy and it allows comments either text or speech.
- You can share it and many people can comment as long as they register.

I share a voicethread my friend Lorraine did and where some of her friends commented
here

skype

One day I received an email from a teacher in Boston, Lorraine, who wanted to chat with other schools over skype. I remember asking her what it was and what was needed to be able to speak or as it is said nowadays to "skype". She answered "just a microphone". We tested it and it worked!!!
I spread the word in my school and we installed it. They also bought many headsets so that children could speak to their friends abroad.From that moment onwards, we were able to speak to many people, not only to Lorraine and Bill but to some other classrooms all over the world.

What I like about it:

-Easy to download, just go to skype and click " download", then you have to create your account, and that's all!!
- You can speak to many people at the same time ( without video) or to one person ( with video)
-you can share your screen.
-Many people use it so it is very easy to communicate with it.

Joining a project

It was a pleasure when I received an email from Bill R, Global Coalition webmaster and teacher of Bethlehem Central School in Upstate New York. He wrote to me to join his project and I did. We started exchanging emails among our students, then we started to speak over skype and also exchanged letters, videos of our schools, posters. It was fun to be able to see their school and some other schools in the world. We also did some newscast and as my students'English was very basic, we just wrote the news together on the blackboard and then typed it in an email, his students then recorded Argentina's news.
We worked together for many years and we really had fun, students enjoyed the experience very much and learnt a lot about other people in the world.

Eventually, we became good friends and I met him when I was in New York in 2008, he met us at the airport, toured us around New York city, got lost in Brooklyn and had dinner at Carmine's.It was incredible to meet him!!!

Epals

Epals is the World's Largest K-12 Learning Network.

First, you must register as a teacher and write your profile. As soon as you post it, you will receive emails of teachers who are seeking to do projects. If they don't suit you, You can go to Classroom match and look for classrooms all over the world.

What I like:

- Monitored emails: All the messages that are sent and received go into your inbox. This way, you don't have any problems with privacy and by the way you can check and grade your students' letters.
- Students are much more exposed to reading.
- Students are given the chance to use language in a meaningful way with real people and get to understand that English is a " lingua Franca" which allows you to understand people all over the world.
-Teachers meet teachers worldwide.
- Classes can join projects in epals.

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My first step

As we couldn't send snail mail any longer due to the high price, I started to look for partners to send emails to.

I was at a loss, how did I find a teacher abroad who would exchange emails with my students?

I don't know if it was easy or difficult but quite quickly found epals

It was fantastic, and soon got to know many teachers who are now my friends.