ePals

ePals is great way to connect students and teachers all over the world. This site offers ready made lesson plans for teachers to use which include standards, objectives, and a calendar of when to complete each part of the lesson. It also allows you to see new lessons and units which other teachers have made and posted on the web. The beauty of this site is that it allows students to communicate with others who are on the other side of the world with very different perspectives. One of my favorite lessons was one on Holidays. This allows students to see a holiday from another countries point of view, not just to read about it in a text book. Another one I liked was a project on habitats which allowed students to talk to people from another country about what their habitat was and how that influenced them. I will definitely use this program in my class.
                                             

Digital Stories

Digital Stories allows teachers a creative and fun way to introduce new topics in a way that is interesting, quick, and different from the normal procedures. I would use my video about my trip to Guatemala to introduce some scenes a visitor to the country may see in order to get the students interested. I would probably use this most frequently as a hook to start a lesson.