EPals.com: Resource Review

One of the ongoing assignments in my Digital Tools, Trends and Databses (LIS644) course is called a Resource Review. Students were instructed to focus on a digital tool or product and identify, bookmark, review and share quality resources via the social bookmarking site Delicious.com and their blogs. In addition to presentations presenting and demonstrating their digital tool of choice to the class, each student will write a paper synthesizing the materials to produce an overarching review of the tool.

At first, in my defensive anti-technology mood, I grumbled at the thought of this assignment and fretted over my lack of basic skills in order to complete the assignment. I didn't even know what was considered a digital tool and what wasn't, let alone thought myself capable enough to demonstrate the thing to my whole class of what seem to be tech-savvy experts. So I initially thought, "Google Docs. I can do Google Docs because it's something I actually do use on a daily basis and am good at." Because researching something you already know is the reason you go to graduate school, right? :)

So I planted myself at square #1 and googled "digital tools" to just cast a line and find out what exactly my "options" were for this assignment topic. It turns out there are lists out there of digital tools - not just a few, but countless digital tools! (And for those of you snappy-pants who knew this before you could do algebra, great. But I'm still learning, so a little slack and celebrate with me, please!) :) Given my interest in building connections between people in learning communities as well as international relations, I was immediately attracted to EPals.com and chose it for the focus of my resource review.

EPals.com is a collaborative learning site where teachers or administrators in schools around the world are paired up with a school/classroom in another country or region, and their students participate in interactive blogging, emails, lessons and share photos, experiences and stories. These cross-cultural connections make up what EPals.com claims to be "the Internet's largest global community of connected classrooms" in a completely secure and protected site managed by the teachers and integrated into syllabi. In some aspects, the site reflects many of the social networking functions now popular in other tools like facebook and myspace, in tools like chat, video, email pen-pals and messaging.

I've tagged a number of websites that discuss/review EPals.com on my Delicious account (username: westka04) and I'll be posting responses periodically here to get some of my thoughts on these reviews "down on paper." Until then, feel free to check out EPals.com to get a feel for the benefits of its opportunities and any potential shortcomings it presents. Collaborative learning - an everyday phenomenon with unlimited and awesome potential, in my opinion. :) Enjoy!