Michael Casey has spent the past seven years teaching grades 5-8 in a multi-subject environment at the Gallon Jug Community School in Belize. For the past four years, he has also served as principal of this small, private, K-8 school. Gallon Jug Community School’s work with ePals began four years ago with simple email exchanges at a time when the school did not have Internet capabilities.  Through the use of one satellite connection in this remote jungle village, students were able to send emails several times a month. Four years later the school is now connected to the Internet with a functional computer lab where ePals remains the primary provider of global emailing exchanges. Further, over the past seven years, the school has worked extensively with the Global Coalition (Bethlehem, N.Y.) from Belize as a global member representing the Central American region. ePals has allowed the 31 coalition schools to exchange art, culture, poetry, newscasts, and much more in established “ ePal Groups.” ePals, in conjunction with the Global Coalition, has allowed Casey’s students to explore global issues such as deforestation, global warming and pollution through exchanges. In 2007-2008 his students also completed work on National Geographic’s global warming project. Going forward, Casey looks forward to more projects for the 2008-2009 school year, blogging sites, and much more from ePals.

Contact Info:

Michael Casey
Principal/Teacher
Gallon Jug Community School
Belize City, Belize, Central America
1 King St., PO Box 37
Belize City, Belize, Central America
508.317.3186

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Blogging for Foreign Language Acquisition

Global Community for Project-Based Learning

Here are some of the projects that Intel education and ePals have collaborated on for students to engage in global projects

Monster Swap:

Primary students give their imaginations a workout by creating unique monsters. They then hone their writing skills by writing descriptions for cyber pals who will try to re-create the students' terrible beasts!

The World Through a Different Pair of Eyes:

Middle school students see the world through another pair of eyes as they communicate with other students from different countries. Students learn about life in other parts of the world, investigate current events and learn about factors that affect the quality of life and longevity of other cultures. Students address the issue of a correlation between where people are born and how long they are likely to live.

StarQuest:

Students relate our modern view of the night sky to that of the anicients. Studying the changing views of the stars in the night sky helps students know more about astronomy and cultural.

Flat Stanley:

By sending a flat friend on vacation, children learn about life in other countries and get an opportunity to host flat travelers from around the world.

The Great Bean Race:

Young botanists investigate plant growth as they compete in a lima bean stalk growing competition with student from other geographic regions.

From Sea to Sea:

Using a WebQuest, students take on the role of Chamber of Commerce employees and develop informational brochures for a local city. Then, they learn more about the economy of the trade and its impact on the local cities and citizens. After developing slideshow presentations, students present what they have learned to an outside audience.

ReadWriteThink, a large online lesson plan community for educators has created lesson plans centered around the ePals site to encourage students to read and write with more interest. By communicating with peers electronically, ReadWriteThink has adopted the ePals philosophy that students enjoy learning when given a means that is fun for them. See how ePals is used in lesson planning for teachers everyday on the ReadWriteThink site.

This school from Brazil has teamed-up with schools from both Kansas and Canada for global collaboration projects using technology such as Skype and ePals School Blog to communicate with each other

"In November our students, 13 to 17 years of age had a Skype meeting with their friends from Topeka, Kansas. Before that, we had shared a blog where our students had exchanged the information of their everyday life with their peers from Kansas. The blogging lasted for about a month and then we agreed upon skyping. That was a real challenge for my students. I thought the conversation would last for a half an hour or so, but, to my surprise, it lasted for an hour and a half. That was the first project of that kind but hopefully there will be more of them, with other schools, of course."

"Our 10-11 year olds made a great contact with their peers in SenPokChin School , Okanagan First Nations decent from Oliver BC, Canada. The children made the first contact through snail mail. This way of communication makes them all very excited. They LOVE getting letters. So, they got their first letters just after Christmas (exactly on the day of Orthodox Christmas). Yesterday (21st May) they got some postcards and photos of their friends. It's a great opportunity for my students to meet some Indians and learn something about the culture of the Okanagan First nation."

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