Technology+Corridor

One of the most obvious means of using technology to foster foreign exchange is through the use of electronic pen pals. Using email, typically moderated by a teacher, the students connect with a student in a foreign country and each converse in the native language of the receiver. One of the most popular services available on the web to facilitate these exchanges is epals ([|http://www.epals.com/).] This service offers email addresses for students with built in safeguards such as keyword filtering and teacher monitoring. In addition the service offers many forums that foster connections between classroooms around the world. Just this past September ePals has made their service available for free to schools.

Beyond email services, other technology tools are available that can foster online collaboration. The use of wikis is increasing in schools, and many educators are using them to allow creation of content by students from different classrooms, which could mean classrooms in different countries. For example, a teacher in India started using a wiki to post the resources used in his class ([|article]). While the original intent was just for the classroom, because it was posted in an online community called Wikispaces, the teacher made a connection with a teacher in Connecticut to collaborate with his class in India.