Epals...cool!

This post is in response to a schoolmate's posting on epals...

Keethai - looks like you found a couple gems!

I really like your idea about giving your kids e-pals and I would like to know more about it. How do your students have access to email? It triggered a thought of mine - I have a friend who teaches grade four (same grade as me) in the Niagara region, and she is always telling me how she tells her class about "her friend who teaches up in the great white north" (that's me!). Well, we decided that we should have each of our classes write letters to each other and start a pen-pal type thing. Well, that idea fell by the wayside for the time being, however now that I think about it - I think e-pals would be so much easier than snail mail! I just wonder how I would do it, because our board blocks anything like hotmail. I wonder if Google's gmail would work. What do you use?

The "Tell Me a Story" idea is also great. Books on tape/cd are always a big hit - so why not make it easier and have them podcast over the internet. The students can listen and even look at digital pictures that go along with the story! Awesome...

Please tell me more about your epals so I can set something up too!!

thanks!