e-Pals Global Learning Community

The e-Pals Global Learning Community is a safe social learning platform that can be used in K12 classrooms for communication and collaboration with classes around the world. The site allows teachers to link their classrooms with others for the purpose of engaging in collaborative educational projects. The project database can be searched by classroom profiles, country, by project, or by perusing teacher forums. All projects are linked with national standards.

The Digital Storytelling Classroom Project is featured on the e-Pals Projects for Collaboration page. The Project Overview explains that students will learn about the ancient practice of storytelling and then tell a story using modern technology tools. They will participate in an email exchange to discuss the process as they develop a story topic, write a story, create or find appropriate images, and share and reflect on their story. The project includes the following components: Essential Questions, Objectives, Culminating Activity, Project Elements, and National Standards.

This project would be appropriate for a variety of classes and could be adapted for any grade level. A look at the Digital Storytelling Teacher Forum reveals a range of classes from first grade through high school who would like to collaborate on this project for history, African American Studies, and language arts. In a middle school technology classroom, this might be implemented as an integrated project to include objectives from American History, language arts and technology. Students could interview World War II veterans and record their stories using technology tools. It might be interesting to partner with a classroom in Japan or Hawaii and compare stories from the perspectives of residents of those areas.

Image: Ken Cole | Agency: Dreamstime.com
The image above depicts part of the Second World War Memorial in Washington, DC