Epals

http://www.epals.com/

Epals is a great website which allows you to make connections with classrooms around the world. It is a free service where you can create accounts for teachers and students. It is managed by teachers and administrators. All interactions are policy managed by school districts and teachers, including emails, blogs, and forums, and can be monitored and filtered according to any standard.

What I like about it is that students' emails go to the teacher first for approval which makes it possible to filter and monitor communications. The site offers many different projects including a schoolblog.

Students are motivated to write emails as their desire to communicate is increased. Their literacy skills are improved as they plan and edit their emails before they send them. The use of proper sentences and no abbreviations are emphasised.

The site offers collaborative projects you can particpate in your you can liaise with a teacher of a class and create your own project or simply use it as a form of communication.

By connecting with a class in another country, many other activities can follow such as looking at Google Maps and finding the school. Looking at the culture and language of the other country.