Hi Rita,
I had numerous discussions with my principal about ePals, especially in the beginning when we were figuring out how to let students use the program, yet keep their privacy protected. We decided it was best to have children create pseudo-names. (Our students used pseudo-names for 4 years. Now we are comfortable letting the children use their first names). My principal and I also drafted a 1-page letter of our own, explaining to parents about our efforts to keep children safe online.
Anyway, at my first meeting with my principal I took a laptop into her office and briefly walked her through the many aspects of ePals. I showed her how students can post on discussion boards, and write e-mail messages. I also showed her how my teacher account could manage students' messages (already had three student e-mails in there, messages I wrote to myself from one of my 5th grade student's dormant account). I also showed her the numerous projects in which students could participate, and the translator part of ePals. By the end of the 10 minute presentation, my principal was completely sold on the value of ePals. She told me that I had the "green" in starting to implement this program. Because no teacher was told he/she had to use the program, I believe more people got on-board than expected. I started out with one teacher (one who never said "no" to anything) and then rolled it out to the rest of the school. As soon as other children heard about ePals, they begged their teachers to try using the program. Because I offered full support, the rest of the staff (some reluctantly) joined the project. Some teachers only used the book talk section of ePals. I was happy with that, since children still had access to collaboration with peers from around the world.
I have to say, though, that all staff and children were very happy with the program. Our only worry soon became finding partner classes in the parts of the world we wanted to reach. That's when we started using all of our resources to contact teachers (outside of ePals) and ask them to join ePals, so our classes could collaborate.
Rita Oates:
Adina,
Your presentation was fascinating, and your ideas were terrific!
I particularly liked how you suggested getting started with a single teacher, about how you manage the people side of integrating technology into use by all the teachers in the school.
You pointed out the importance of administrative support to make all this happen, too.
Can you share any ideas of how to talk about ePals to a principal or assistant principal who has never heard of it?
