Since 1996, ePals, the leading provider of school-safe collaborative learning products for K-12 students, teachers and parents, has been dedicated to helping learners from around the world connect and interact with each other online in a safe, educational environment. ePals connects teachers, students, parents and educators from around the world, enabling them to communicate and collaborate on academic and cultural projects and establish international friendships.

Our global community reaches more than 600.000 educators and millions of students in over 200 countries and territories. ePals technology enables these learners, who speak over 136 different languages, to connect, share, collaborate and learn.

Security is of utmost importance to ePals. Since 1996, we have focused on creating a safe and secure environment for students to learn and explore.

• ePals email platform, SchoolMail, is designed to comply with all applicable laws, such as COPPA, FERPA. Additionally, we mandate that teachers obtain parental permission before any images of students under the age of 13 appear on our website.
• We have added safety features to SchoolMail, including built-in content and language filters, to help ensure appropriateness of email messages.
• Our spam and virus controls help prevent unwanted, inappropriate messages and scan attachments for viruses.
• ePals forums are moderated to ensure appropriate content.
• Adult users have the ability to set access levels, thereby limiting the audience with whom their student ePals users can communicate.

For more advice on internet safety, see our ePals Internet Safety Tips

ePals Community consists of educators, students and parents. All adult users go through a verification process, either through an approved ePals profile or by their school or school district, before gaining access to the community.

ePals provides students with opportunities to develop many skills imperative to success in the 21st century. These include computer literacy, critical-thinking abilities, global awareness, collaborative skills and multicultural friendships. ePals email platform is the first student email with built-in instant language translation to help break down language barriers and increase cross-cultural learning. Our email platform has intuitive web-based interfaces which allow students to become familiar with the email system in a short period of time. As an additional bonus, students become eager and improved writers when given an audience, other than their teachers, and something of value about which to write.

As a member of the ePals Community, you will not only be able bring global awareness, collaborative experiences and digital literacy to your students. You will also have access to:

• tools that will foster highly-effective learning environments, while saving "prep" time;
• successfully implemented collaborative projects, as well as the framework for replicating them;
• authentic learning experiences for your students such as connecting with a classroom in the rain forest while you study the rain forest;
• thousands of classrooms around the world who are actively seeking partners for educational collaborations.

Grow your own learning community by adding your students' families into your ePals network. Share your students' progress and success; publish your class newsletter; use our translation tool to communicate with parents in their native. Through ePals email you can connect families to their children's learning. Encourage the parents of your students to join ePals today. By having approved profiles with us, parents are now within your learning network!

Membership in ePals Global Community is free, including the use of ePals safe and secure email platform, and access to all ePals collaborative projects and thousands of classrooms world wide with which to do them.

ePals also offers select premium services for a fee:

• epals Learning Space, a virtual collaborative workspace.
• ePals platform, a distributed learning platformavailabel for third-party licencing.
• In2Books, ePals' literacy program for 3rd - 5th grade U.S.-based classrooms.

 

Visit our feedback form to contact ePals Customer Support.

ePals protects the privacy of our users. Click here to see our privacy policy.

ePals has many features that promote global awareness, elevate learning opportunities and foster community cohesiveness. These features include:

• market-leading SchoolMail, a secure email system;
• file sharing and storage;
• personalized homepage;
• language translation tools;
• moderated forums – for teachers, families, and students;
• instructional guides;
• collaborative projects;
• media galleries for uploading student work;
• “Learn About It” student units, for independent student-guided learning;
• focus areas for independent student-guided learning;
• eFilms, documentary films; and
• In2Books.

With ePals' support and suite of services, you will take your students on a safe and friendly learning adventure. ePals is an effective way for students and teachers to find their voices, meet friends from around the world, and gain 21st century literacy skills. At ePals you can

• Connect with classrooms around the world: Find classrooms across the world and collaborate on a topic of shared interest. Upload your students' work to a media gallery; submit your projects to be featured on Teacher Spotlight.

 

• Connect with other teachers: Communicate with other teachers in ePals forums. Get inspired by great teacher-created projects on Teacher Spotlight.

 

• Connect with students: Help students find global ePals with whom to communicate and build friendships. Monitor your students' emails to keep track of their writing development, guide their global awareness and ensure their online safety.

   

• Connect with students families: Keep in touch with families and share student work via email and media galleries.

   

In2Books is ePals' evidenced-based curriculum that fosters reading, writing and critical-thinking skills. The curriculum has been shown to significantly improve students' literacy skills and love of learning. In2Books promotes literacy across the curriculum by matching students with adult pen pals who read the same books and correspond online about important issues in the books. The books are carefully selected to align with literacy, social studies and science standards. This learning experience is reinforced in the classroom with the study of the applicable genre, in-depth discussion and carefully designed curricula. Learn More

ePals LearningSpace is a virtual workspace optimized for creating, sharing, managing and collaborating on educational content. With the introduction of ePals LearningSpace, students and educators have the opportunity to experience purposeful, project-based learning in a collaborative and controlled environment.

ePals Platform is a distributed learning platform available for third-party licensing. Educational groups can create closed-learning communities, housed completely within the ePals Global Community. Examples of current licensees include International Baccalaureate and Heinle Language Learning. Users of an ePals Platform are able to interact with the ePals Global Community for collaborative projects, forums discussions, contests and more.

Click here to see the ePals.com site map.

You may have decided to join ePals on your own, or you may be part of a school or school district who has joined on your behalf. Depending on how you signed up, you will have slightly different methods of getting registered, setting up accounts and customizing your ePals account.

 

Signing up as part of a larger group (SchoolMail for Group Users) If your school or school district joined ePals on your behalf, your SchoolMail account will include certain parameters set by a member of your group, usually a school district administrator. This person has already verified your role as a teacher. To activate your ePals account, you will receive an email with usernames and temporary passwords for you and your students. When you first log on, you will be prompted to choose a permanent password. Your next step is to create your classroom profile. Because your role as teacher has already been verified, you are not required to have an approved profile to be active in the ePals Global Community. However, we do strongly suggest that you complete a profile, so that you are visible to and searchable by other members of the community

Signing up on my own (SchoolMail for Individual Users) If you are signing up on your own, your SchoolMail account will have slightly different features and parameters. To activate your ePals account, you must first join ePals. Go to the Join Now button on the right side of the ePals homepage. After you have verified your email address, we will provide a link to continue registration. Please fill out the requested information, including choosing a username and password. Once you read and accept ePals terms and conditions, you will be directed to create your classroom profile. As an individual joining ePals, you are required to have an approved profile to use your email and to contact other members of the ePals Global Community. Your approved profile is part of our verification process of your role as teacher.
Please note that students cannot create profiles, only teachers, parents and other adult learners are permitted to do so.

Most log in difficulties, fall into one of these three areas:

1. Username Problems
   Your username is the part of your ePals email address before the @ sign. For example, if your email address were support@epals.com, you'd enter 'support' in the username field. If your epals mail address is johnd@rcps.epals.com, your username is johnd@rcps.
   If you've forgotten your username, contact us giving us as much information about your account as possible. Since you are unable to access your ePals account, please provide an alternate email address where we can reach you.
2. Password Problems
   Passwords are case sensitive. If you have forgotten your password, use Forgot password link on the ePals Homepage. If a student on a monitored account has forgotten his or her password, we can help you with that as well. Remember to give us a working email address so we can reply to you.
3. Settings Problems
   To be able to use ePals, your browser must be set up to accept cookies. See more information on cookie settings.

   If you are still having difficulties logging in after checking these common problems, please contact us for further assistance.

Don't worry. You'll be surprised at how easy-to-use ePals is. We have the following downloadable guides, all of which include detailed step-by-step instructions for using particular features of ePals:

• The Administrator's Guide to ePals' SchoolMail
• ePals SchoolMail, written by ePals member, Janetta Garton
• Internet Safety Tips
• Tips for Using ePals Forums

Your ePals profile is your identity to ePals community members. It should be informative, friendly and written clearly. The more detailed and specific you are in your profile, the better chance you will have for successfully matching with partner classes and families. For Global Community Mail Users, an approved profile is required before you will be able to contact other teachers.

Profiles are usually reviewed by ePals staff for approval within 24 hours of submission. Profiles that are not approved are usually rejected for not containing enough detail and information that will help you be successful.

Required information:
Teacher’s name
School name
Complete school address

A successful profile also includes:

1. age-range of class (age in years as well as grade level);
2. language(s) the students speak;
3. location of the classroom;
4. location of desired partner;
5. methods with which you would like to collaborate (email, postal mail, blogs, video conferences) If you are interested in a particular method of communication, but do not know how to undertake it (i.e. you want to do a video conference but don't know how) please indicate this.);
6. Length of desired collaboration (school year, semester, a week, one-time exchange, etc.);
7. Frequency of desired collaboration (weekly, monthly, at holidays);
8. Topic of desired collaboration (Specific topics are preferred: global warming is better than science).

Yes. Click here to see the following Sample Profiles:

• Teacher Profile
  
• Parent Profile
  
• Individual Profile (i.e. Higher Ed student)
  

At the bottom of your profile, you will see comments from ePals moderators letting you know why your profile was not approved. Carefully read the comments our moderators have sent to you. These comments will save you time! Most of all make sure you've answered the following questions in your profile description:

• Which countries would you like your ePals to come from?
• What language(s) are you interested in your students using?
• What subject areas would you like to collaborate on?
• How often will you be able to communicate with your ePals?
• How long would you like an ePals partnership to last: a day, a month, a year?
• Describe the interests and hobbies of your students.
• What ideas do you have for learning topics and projects?

No, ePals does not permit profiles from from students under the age of 18. If you are a university student over the age of 18, you may submit a profile. If you are under the age of 18, your parent or teacher may submit a profile on your behalf. Once he or she is approved, you are able to participate as a monitored student under your teacher's or parent's approved profile and account.

Absolutely! Many of our ePals members are parents, seeking to improve their children's language skills, increase their children's global awareness or simply to form new friendships. We have a large community of parents who homeschool their children or are families who want to find individual ePals for their children. Once your profile has been approved, you can search for other families which whom to partner.

Profile approval usually takes 24 hours. Once your profile is approved you may use your email account and contact other ePals teachers or parents. While waiting for approval, you may still participate in ePals forums.

This is most likely because you have left out some required information from your profile. If all of the fields are filled out, and you continue to have problems, contact us and we will help you to determine what the problem is.

When your profile has been reviewed, ePals will send you a message, which you will see when you log in. It will indicate whether your profile has been approved or if changes are required. You can find this information in the comment box on your account home page. Please follow our direction, make the suggested changes, and re-submit your profile for approval. Again, it will be reviewed within 24 hours.

Profiles remain active until you delete them. If you change your goals, or want to undertake a different project, we suggest you edit your profile as often as possible to reflect those changes. That way, you won't be getting contacted for matches that don't interest you. If a profile has been dormant for a very long period of time, it may be automatically deactivated. Deactivated profiles are saved, and can later be reactivated.

With an approved profile, you are now able to participate in all aspects of ePals. You will be able to send and receive email. You will be able to search and find partner classrooms for collaborative learning experiences. You will have access to ePals' lesson plans, projects, and instructional resources for your classroom. ePals' forums will be open to both you and your monitored students. Welcome.

Each time you log in to ePals, you will be taken to your homepage. Your homepage will have tabs for Mail, My Profile and New ePals Classrooms.

• The Mail tab will have everything you need for sending, receiving and editing both your own email and your students' monitored email accounts.
• The My Profile tab includes a copy of your current, active profile as well as all of your personal information.
• The New ePals Classrooms tab enables you to see a listing of the newest profiles on ePals.

Locate the My Profile button on your homepage. In My Profile, you will find private, personal information, as well as a copy of your current, active profile. You can make changes to your name, password, languages, grades and subjects here. Remember, passwords are case sensitive.

There are many ways to search for a classroom partner:

From your homepage:

• Access the New ePals Classrooms: Search profiles approved that day

From the Collaborate Tab on the Homepage:

• Search all Profiles search
• Search Profiles by geography
• Search Project Forums
• Search Teacher Forums

ePals Teacher Forums
Teachers post messages seeking collaborative partners in many areas of the Teacher Forums. The following forums consistently have the most messages posted:

• ePals Wanted
• Ongoing Project
• Project Forums
• Teacher Spotlight Forum

There are over 130,000 profiles in our database. We typically add several thousand new profiles each month.

Experience has shown us that detailed and specific profiles receive far more requests for partnerships. If you have not received any requests for partnerships, re-read your profile to see if you can add more detail.

Another tip: If you want to find a partner, don't wait for one to come to you. Go out and search for one yourself! Use ePals search tools and find some classrooms that meet your needs. With over 130,000 to choose from, you will surely find a match.

If you have used the general search, and have not found a partner classroom, try the advanced search. Start out with as many details filled in as you can. If you aren't successful, open up some of your parameters. For example, instead of limiting your age range to a one year span, open it up to a 4 year span. Or, instead of asking for a classroom from France, seek a classroom of native French-speakers, but who may live elsewhere. Vary your terms – different terms are more common in different parts of the world. Keep trying and feel free to contact ePals support if needed.

Since ePals is a global community, you will be contacting classrooms who may have very different school schedules than yours. Perhaps the classroom you are contacting is on vacation or, perhaps they are already involved in a partnership. Keep trying! Try clicking on the "search all" button on the profiles. This will display all of the approved profiles on ePals, in order of the most recently approved. The newest classrooms are unlikely to have formed partnerships yet, and will certainly be looking for some. See if any of these classrooms meet your needs. Finally, feel free to contact us with your specific questions.

ePals has developed a series of collaborative projects for our community members. Our projects are:

• Interactive: Students research and share data with global peers
• Cross-curricular: Math, sciences, languages, technology, social and cultural studies
• Inclusive: Projects accommodate multiple learning styles and age ranges

They are easily adaptable to the amount of time you have available, and the curriculum you are already using in your classroom.

One of the goals of ePals is to provide classes around the world with the opportunity to use tools available via ePals and participate in exciting collaborative projects. Many students and classrooms are familiar with email, so it is a great way to begin these collaborations. We hope that teachers will use email communications as a starting point.

You can begin by choosing a partner classroom and together, choose a project. Or choose a project, and then use ePals search tools to find a partner classroom. Our projects are intended as guidelines. Feel free to customize them to suit your class and your personal goals.

Once you have a project and a partner, you should discuss and decide the following issues:

1. Project start and end dates;
2. Number of emails to be exchanged;
3. Subject matter of emails;
4. Length of time between emails;
5. Geographical focus of research (will students research their own country, their ePals' country, or other areas of the world?)
6. Will students work alone, in pairs, in small groups, or as a class?

The benefits of teacher collaboration are great. ePals offers many opportunities to experience collaboration. Look for relevant discussions in Ongoing Projects, on the Teacher Talk forum. If you don't find a pertinent discussion, please start one. All ePals members will benefit from your experiences. We look forward to hearing how you have collaborated with global partners!

ePals wants to hear from you! Without doubt, the teachers in our global community are an incredible resource. While each member's experiences alone are a significant resource, the sum of our experience is invaluable. Share your collaborative projects, and student work by uploading them to the media gallery at ePals Teacher Spotlight page. You may also email any projects and student work directly to us at teacherchallenge@epals.com.

The following languages are built-in to our communication tools:

Afrikaans Albanian Arabic Belarusian Bulgarian Catalan Chinese Croatian Czech

Danish Dutch English Estonian Filipino Finnish French Galician German

Greek Hebrew Hindi Hungarian Icelandic Indonesian Irish Italian Japanese

Korean Latvian Lithuanian Macedonian Malay Maltese Norwegian Persian Polish

Portuguese Romanian Russian Serbian Slovak Slovenian Spanish Swahili Swedish

Thai Turkish Ukrainian Vietnamese Welsh Yiddish

The Instant Language Translation tool, available within your email, instantly translates text in 35 languages. You may translate messages you receive, as well as messages you write. The automatic translation software is effective for conveying the "gist" of your message, and will not be a perfect translation.

To translate a received message:
Go to your inbox and open the message you would like to translate. Click on "Translate this message from," choose a language pair and click "Translate."

To translate an email before sending:

1. First, type your message, click on "Translate this message from," choose a language pair and click "Translate." To finish up, hit "send."
2. To translate text from other files, websites, etc.:
3. Highlight chosen text; click "Edit" in the menu bar and select "Copy."
4. Click "Instant Language Translation" in the "Communication Tools" section.
5. Click in the blank box. Click "Edit" in the menu bar and select "Paste".
6. Scroll to the bottom of the page and click "Translate this message from".
7. Select the appropriate language pair; click "Translate."

 

ePals forums are discussion boards which provide ongoing public discussion with other teachers, students and parents around the world. On our forums, you will be able to read, post, and reply to topics of interest to you. All messages to ePals forums are moderated. Those messages that are posted on our forums can be read and responded to by anyone within the ePals community. However, adults are only permitted to respond to messages on Teacher Forum, Parent Forum and Project Forums and on the Book Club. Students under the age of 18 are permitted to post on Student Talk, Student Project Forums, Focus Area Forums and our Book Club.

We have forums available for all members. To view a current listing of forums available to teachers, parents and students, click here.

Within most of our forums, discussions are organized by topic categories. Within each category there are individual threads - ongoing conversations about the same topic. The best way to get a feel for ePals forums is to go to the forums, choose one and click on a thread that is of interest to you. From here you can read the breadth and depth of the community discussions going on between ePals members.

ePals forums are open to all of our members. Because we are a global community of members, we expect everyone to participate in our forums with respect. We have developed a series of policies and tips that will guide you and your students in using our forums appropriately. Please click here to view our Forum Use Policy.

Yes. In order to maintain our secure status, we have established additional parameters for student users:

1. No personally identifying information. This includes, but is not limited to: last name; home address; city of residence; age or grade level; phone numbers; screen-names for instant messaging or online communities; school name; name of teams; churches; or clubs.
2. No links to websites will be permitted.
3. User names cannot match email address. A student with a username of OwenF and a user name of OwenF@epals.com, will not be permitted to post comments until either his username or email address has been changed.
4. Students cannot post using a teacher's account. Each student must have his or her own account to post messages.
5. Adults may not post on the student message boards.

All messages are screened prior to publication. ePals moderators will withhold messages that do not meet our standards for publication. The above-referenced this list is not conclusive and other messages may be deemed inappropriate at our moderators' discretion. If you ever have a message rejected, we will inform you via email that it was withheld and the reasons why.

ePals reserves the right to edit messages. Our editing usually involves grammar, punctuation and spelling changes. Because many of our users are non-native English speakers, ePals forums function as a method of learning and improving English language skills. For this reason, we encourage our members to model great English language use when participating in our forums.

Due to the volume of messages that are submitted from our large, global community, your message will usually appear within 24 hours of submission.

There are many reasons why a message can be returned to you. Some of the most common reasons for returning a message are:

1. Your message contained inappropriate content, personally identifying information, or was incomprehensible.
2. You are trying to start a new topic, when it already exists on the forums. Before starting a new topic, read through the forum to see if another member has already started a discussion about your topic.
3. You are an adult attempting to post on the student forums.
4. You are a student under the age of 18, attempting to post on the adult forums.
5. Your post is too short (usually less than 10 words) and adds little value to the ongoing discussion. An example of such a post is "I agree totally," or "I like math."
6. A submission can be returned if there are too many errors or if it is written entirely in slang or colloquial language. Because many of our forum users are learning English as a second language, we like the forums to model proper English language use.

No. In order to preserve the collaborative nature of our community, at this time we do not permit any commercial solicitations. This includes posts advertising any business, service or competing website.

Yes. ePals is open for use from anywhere at any time for both adults and students. To access ePals from a home computer, a student needs only to know his or her user name and password and have internet access.

When your student posts to a forum, an abbreviated version of her/her name appears. This is your student’s screenname. If you know your student’s screenname, you can enter it in the search box that appears at the top of each forum page. When you click "search," all the postings that have been written by that screenname will appear.

Because our forums are moderated, student submissions to a forum do not stop at a teacher inbox for approval. However, all posted messages are moderated and approves at our end.

If a message submitted by a student to our forum contains significantly worrisome content, ePals will contact either the teacher or parent affiliated with the student account.

ePals SchoolMail is the recognized leader in school-safe email for students in grades K-12. ePals SchoolMail provides multilingual email solutions to classes, schools, families and districts worldwide. With this easy-to-use product, educators can create protected, customized, collaborative environments.

You and your students will use ePals SchoolMail to interact with ePals all over the world. You can use ePals SchoolMail as you would any other email system. Again, depending on how you joined ePals, you may not have access to all of the features listed below. If you have questions, please contact your SchoolMail Administrator.

With ePals SchoolMail, you will find the following features:

• Monitored Email
• Instant Language Translation
• Virus Checking
• Anti-Spam Filters
• Spell-Checker
• File Sharing & Storage
• Manuals & Tutorials

Please Note: School districts may choose which features of SchoolMail to include in their package. So, you may not have access to all features mentioned above. If you have questions about which ePals features are being used in your school, please contact your ePals Administrator.

ePals SchoolMail operates much like other email programs. With each email you send, you have many options. Emails can be sent to numerous recipients at the same time. You can send carbon copies (send a visible copy to additional recipients) and blind carbon copies (send copies to additional parties without notifying other recipients). You may send attachments ("Attachments"),"Save Drafts", and use the "Send Later" feature to set up a specific delivery time.

When replying to an email, you have the option of replying just to the sender (Reply), replying to everyone on the email (Reply All), forwarding the email (Forward), deleting the email (Delete) or identifying the email as spam. (This is Spam.)

The Translator button allows you to instantly translate an email into a different language. ePals currently offers translation of the following languages: Chinese, English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, and Spanish.

ePals email is intuitive and easy to use. Here are a few tips to make the process easier:

• Separate multiple email addresses by commas;
• Subject line must be filled in;
• Attachments are permitted and will be scanned for inappropriate content;
• Passwords are case-sensitive.

First, type your email message, and fill in the To box and Subject box. To add your attachment, simply click on the Attachment box. You will see Browse Files. Choose the document you would like to add, and then click the Attachment box. Repeat this for each document you would like to add.

The address book lets you store information about your ePals including names, email addresses, street addresses and phone numbers. You have the ability to add, delete, edit and copy contacts. Once contacts are in your address book, you can organize them into groups.

The "groups" designation is another method of organizing your online data. Creating groups allows you to organize lists of contacts according to group titles. For example, you might want to organize your class/group according to clubs, academic level, individual classrooms or teams.

1. To create groups, the "Add New Group" button.
2. Choose a name and icon to identify your new group.
3. Click "Add Group".
4. To put contacts into groups, select any button under the To Cc or Bcc columns.
5. Scroll down to the "Move Contacts" area.
6. Click "Select a group" and choose a group from the list.
7. Click "Move."

Creating folders allow you to organize your email messages into various categories. Think of your account as a filing cabinet. Folders are used to file and organize email according to subject matter. There are four permanent folders in for your account:

• Inbox: Mail arrives here and remains in this folder until you move or delete it.
• Trash: Deleted messages are stored in the trash and remain there until emptied by the user.
• Processed Mail: Only appears if you have created student accounts. Allows teachers to store approved student mail.
• Sent Mail: A copy of everything you send is saved here.

Monitored email is the method by which teachers or parents can oversee their students' or children's email activity. Administrators, teachers or parents can create monitored accounts for each of their students or children. Teacher and parent accounts allow you to choose settings to automatically filter profanity and attachments and view every message sent or received for accounts that you create and monitor. Filters may be adapted for each student.

What are Filters?
A filter is a method by which email messages can be scanned for particular content. ePals SchoolMail offers filters as an additional method of security for student accounts. You may choose between four access levels of protection, and may set individual parameters for each student, or one level for all.

Filters are yet another method of monitoring student mail. Filters screen all messages for profanity. The filter level set on each student mail account determines the degree of monitoring needed. Filters are set individually for each student. You may choose to have different filter setting for different students in your class. Or, you can choose one filter setting for the entire class. If you have joined as part of a larger group, your ePals administrator has chosen your default filter level. Teachers can request a different level for their students if so desired by contacting your ePals administrator. If you have joined on your own, ePals has set a default filter level at Level 1. You may change your filter level by going to Monitored Mail, and clicking on the Filter Setting button. Filter levels are:

• Level 1: the Monitor must approve every message sent and received regardless of content;
• Level 2: the Monitor receives a copy of every message sent or received, but must approve only those which contain profanity.
• Level 3: The Monitor will only receive messages that contain profanity. These messages will require approval before reaching their destination.
• Level 4: All content filers are off. The Monitor will only receive copies of student messages if ePals SchoolMail is set to flag messages with attachments and then only if the message has an attached file.

Attachment filters work in addition to ePals profanity filters. If attachment filters are turned on, an email that contains an attachment will be flagged for your review, regardless of profanity. If the attachment filter is turned off, an email with an attachment will only be flagged if that attachment contains profanity. Attachment filters can be set individually for each student. Or, you can choose the same setting for your entire class.

If you have joined as part of a larger group, your ePals administrator has chosen your attachment filter setting. You can request to change this setting by contacting your ePals administrator. If you have joined on your own, your attachment filters are turned on (ePals default setting.) To change this, go to Monitored Mail. Click on the Filter Setting button. Underneath the Preview Attachments tab, check No.

ePals scans all attachments for profanity. Teachers and school administrators have the option of turning off this filter. If the filter remains on, and an attachment is found to contain profanity, the attachment will be flagged. The teacher in charge of the account will be notified via email.

The access level determines where students can send email to and where they can receive email from. For all users, ePals sets a default access level to the ePals Global Community level, permitting communication with anyone who has epals.com as part of their email address. However, ePals school administrators can vary the student access levels anywhere within the following range:

• Class/monitor: Students are limited to emailing other students who have the same monitor/teacher.
• School: Students are limited to emailing students and teachers in the same school.
• District: This option is only available if your ePals system includes multiple schools. Under this level, students are limited to emailing students and teachers at schools within your system.
• ePals SchoolMail: This option limits students to emailing people who use ePals SchoolMail in their schools.
• ePals: This option allows students to email any address that contains epals.com as part of the domain.
• Internet: This option allows students to email anyone with an email address, whether they are in your district, part of ePals, or using the Internet through other means.

Messages that come and go from the monitored email accounts belonging to your students are stored in the Incoming and Outgoing folders on your home account page. These can include messages you need to approve before they can go further as well as copies of messages that have already reached the intended recipients. What you receive here is determined by the filter level you have set.

Enter your Monitored Mail page, and click on the Incoming (or Outgoing) tab. Highlight a message's subject, and click on it to read it. Once you have read the message, click on the "approve" button to approve it. Once you do so, the message will be sent on to your student's mailbox and a copy will go to your processed mail folder.

Yes. You will have a copy of all emails you approve in your Processed Mail Folder. The copies will remain there until you move or delete them.

If, after reading a message, you choose not to approve it, you can click the delete button. This will automatically delete the message. No copy will go to your student's mailbox. You can also move the email into one of your other folders, particularly if you'd like to keep a record of this email or store it for later discussion with a student.

No. If the email is approved, all the students' email will remain in their mailboxes. They are only be deleted from your mailbox.

File Sharing and Storage allows you to store files and retrieve them from any computer, anywhere. In addition, you can use File Sharing to distribute and collect files from colleagues located anywhere in your ePals system. You have three storage areas that have different access privileges:

• My Private Files: Only you have access to these files.
• My Shared Files: These files are available for others to use.
• Other Shared Files: These are files created by others which you have permission to use.

Click File Sharing and Storage in the main menu on the left of your screen. You will see a screen that displays the files currently saved in your storage area. To view your other storage areas, use the pull-down menu to select a file type and click on the GO button.

Often, a student's homeroom teacher, or the subject-matter teacher, works best for the role of Monitor. We do not recommend setting up more than one account per student. This results in too much confusion for the student, who will find it difficult to remember which ePals account he used to communicate with his or her ePal.

Spam filters scan every incoming message and assign each a score based on the likelihood of it being spam. ePals offers users the option of adjusting the sensitivity of this filter and determining how to handle spam messages. If you have joined as part of a larger group, your ePals administrator will set your level of spam filter. If you have joined on your own, you can adjust your spam filters very easily. On the My Mail navigation bar, you will find the Spam Control button. Click on the Enable Spam Control to turn on spam filters. Choose a sensitivity level: Low, Medium or High. Choose other options and hit the apply button. ePals' default level of spam filters is medium.

Each user should choose a level of spam control that fits within his or her comfort zone. If you choose a high level of control, it is more likely that non-Spam will end up in your mailbox. An email from a parent's outside email address, for example, could end up as spam. Some users prefer strong spam control, while others would rather not have to check their Spam folders as frequently.

If you are trying to view a page in Japanese and it looks like the characters are incorrect, please don't worry!

 

Because of the differences between character systems, many browsers and operating systems need to be specially set up to display Japanese characters.

Special note to Netscape users: In order to view ePALS in Japanese , you may need to adjust the font settings on your browser. Click on Edit, then Preferences. Choose Appearance. From Fonts, select "Use my default fonts, overriding page-specified fonts."

For more information on configuring your browser or operator system to view more languages, check your manual or visit the manufacturer's website:

• Apple
• Microsoft Windows
• Microsoft Internet Explorer
• AOL
• Firefox
• Opera

If it looks like you are logged into someone else's account, don't worry. This effect sometimes occurs when your proxy server remembers a page viewed by a previous user and displays it in your browser. You are not actually in that person's account and you are not able to access any private information.

In order to use ePals, your Bess filters will need to be adjusted by a system administrator. From the Bess Control Center, choose "Filter Control," and then "Filter Schedules." Select "Bess with Freemail" and then click "Modify Default Filter." Finally, click "Commit Schedule to Server."

It will take about 30 minutes for the changes to take effect. We suggest you log out and return after this time.

For more information, please visit http://www.n2h2.com/support/bess.php?device_type=g2100