Epals!

Epals looks like a great medium for students to be able to interact with others from different countries and cultures.  What is especially nice for teachers is the fact that they have lessons already planned for teachers.  The only downside there is, is that they do not provide free research material for the students.  They suggest purchasing National Geographic Books/Magazines for the supplemental material.  However, research material can be easily substituted in other various forms.  Students can also have their own email account, where they can email other students in the epals community.

An idea that I have for classroom application would be to have students email questions (perhaps even weekly) to their epals, and then have students present their epal's responses.  This would help the students be able to experience more cultures.  Teachers would provide some questions to ask their epal, while students being able to add more if they choose so.  The only foreseen problem would be, if there was no/limited response from the other epal students.  The teacher could also introduce students to a certain aspect of the epal's culture so that students could have more background knowledge to the epal responses.  This would be a great way to 'push' students into new cultural realms, so that they can have a more diverse outlook on the world.