Your students can view videos created by students in other places -- New Zealand, Senegal, etc. -- at no cost in the ePals Video Vault. Teachers submit videos to ePals, and staff review before posting them.
The 17 videos, each about a minute, from Senegal are done by students about the age of your students. They show a slice of life of "before school" activities....milking the cow, skimming the cream and making butter; going to the well to draw water and carry it home on one's head while walking with friends; and other things that are pretty foreign to US students. I don't know whether you have "city kids" in your class in India, but they may not experience some of this too, or it may be very familiar.
You can also participate in two free projects from ePals that would help with your geography curriculum.
1. The Way We Are: students will engage in a collaborative learning experience. Through email exchanges, students will build friendships and learn about the daily lives and characteristics of the local environment of students who live in another region of the world.
2. Maps : In this project, students will learn to use and draw different kinds of maps (with a focus on three types of maps - physical, climate, and political). Students will participate in email exchanges that use maps and geography to get to know their ePals and how and where their ePals live. They will learn about the most important parts of their ePals location, and how that location differs from their own, and about how important maps can be.
You would need to join the ePals Global Community by submitting a profile of your classes. Go to www.epals.com and click on "Join" in the upper right.
If you wished, you could also sign up for free SchoolMail for your students.
You can find help on these two projects in the Project Forums.
The Way We Are Forums: http://www.epals.com/forums/148.aspx
Maps Forums: http://www.epals.com/forums/146.aspx
Teachers can post questions and answers in the Teacher Forum only; students can post in the Student Forum only. Everyone can read the questions and answers without signing in.
Translation is available in the profiles and in SchoolMail. 58 languages are available, including Hindi.
All of the things I mention are free and have a high level of student safety built in. For example, if your students post something on the Student Forum with personally identifible information, phone number, email address, etc., the moderators will take that out. Also, only "civil discourse" is allowed, so there is no namecalling or other inappropriate comments. Just asking your students to read through the comments in some of the Student Forums is a great assignment to learn about other places from students!
Can you share a little more about your curriculum and what your students study specifically? The more information you provide, the better resources we can suggest!
Replies
There are many interesting geography lesson plans, activities, and interactive games on The National Geographic and History Channel websites.
The 17 videos, each about a minute, from Senegal are done by students about the age of your students. They show a slice of life of "before school" activities....milking the cow, skimming the cream and making butter; going to the well to draw water and carry it home on one's head while walking with friends; and other things that are pretty foreign to US students. I don't know whether you have "city kids" in your class in India, but they may not experience some of this too, or it may be very familiar.
You can also participate in two free projects from ePals that would help with your geography curriculum.
1. The Way We Are: students will engage in a collaborative learning experience. Through email exchanges, students will build friendships and learn about the daily lives and characteristics of the local environment of students who live in another region of the world.
2. Maps : In this project, students will learn to use and draw different kinds of maps (with a focus on three types of maps - physical, climate, and political). Students will participate in email exchanges that use maps and geography to get to know their ePals and how and where their ePals live. They will learn about the most important parts of their ePals location, and how that location differs from their own, and about how important maps can be.
You would need to join the ePals Global Community by submitting a profile of your classes. Go to www.epals.com and click on "Join" in the upper right.
If you wished, you could also sign up for free SchoolMail for your students.
You can find help on these two projects in the Project Forums.
The Way We Are Forums: http://www.epals.com/forums/148.aspx
Maps Forums: http://www.epals.com/forums/146.aspx
Teachers can post questions and answers in the Teacher Forum only; students can post in the Student Forum only. Everyone can read the questions and answers without signing in.
Translation is available in the profiles and in SchoolMail. 58 languages are available, including Hindi.
All of the things I mention are free and have a high level of student safety built in. For example, if your students post something on the Student Forum with personally identifible information, phone number, email address, etc., the moderators will take that out. Also, only "civil discourse" is allowed, so there is no namecalling or other inappropriate comments. Just asking your students to read through the comments in some of the Student Forums is a great assignment to learn about other places from students!
Philip
Can you share a little more about your curriculum and what your students study specifically? The more information you provide, the better resources we can suggest!
Lucy Gray