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The ePals Global Learning Community is a network of interconnected classrooms around the world. It provides a safe environment for students and teachers for building and exchanging knowledge, using protected e-mail, blogs, translation tools, evidence-based curricula and authentic, collaborative learning experiences. ePals offers a range of services and features that are free for students in grades K through 12. One service is ePals SchoolMail. This is a multilingual electronic communications solution that offers schools and districts a protected, customized and collaborative environment. Another service is ePals SchoolBlog, an educational tool for creating unified Web-based platforms that administrators, teachers, parents and students use to achieve academic goals (hotchalk.com)

The ePals Global Learning community is a very useful networking, and collaborative tool. I found it very easy to use. It is easy to sign up and free to use. I have had no problems using this website.

Only useful if someone contacts you to edit a document, or if you upload a document and contact them. More person to person, then person to internet community.

Writeboard is a collaborative document creation tool that can be used between a number of people. This tool quick for anyone to start up. On the homepage you can create your document to be edited by naming the document, then provide your email address. Once the wrtieboard is created you can begin typing! Once the document is complete you can invite people to view and edit your document as well as leave comments. Once the document has been edited by another person, you will be able to compare your document with the newest edited document. One of the challenges I faced when using this tool is the format of the document when typing. In order to indent or make a word bold or italic, a special code needed to be entered. For example, to make the word "Introduction" bold, you would have to type *Introduction*. This actually slowed my typing down, but I feel if this is a tool that you use often, these are codes you could catch on to. The strength of this tool is the option to invite anyone to edit. I feel that this would be useful for teachers to communicate back and forth to share activities and edit them. Or it could be useful as an assignment for students to share a paper and to edit the others. This would help their editing skills. I also like the option to compare and contrast your original document with one that has been recently edited. I think this would be helpful in seeing what improvments were made and choose whether or not you'd like to accept them. I think that this tool would be better for high-school students, or any teacher. The tool would be difficult for anyone younger to use.

HotChalk is a collaborative tool for teachers, parents and students. Teachers can access a free learning management system and curriculum tools. Also available is the ability to interact with students and parents regarding assignments and grades. Free resources include a learning management system, lesson plans, curriculum tools and forums to discuss topics with other teachers. Most resources on this website are free but some of the more advance and global setting are not (hotchalk.com)

"A Wetpaint website is built on the power of collaborative thinking. Here, you can create websites that mix all the best features of wikis, blogs, forums and social networks into a rich, user-generated community based around the whatever-it-is that rocks your socks. A social website that's so easy to use, anyone can participate."\n About Us. (2009). retrieved February 28, 2009 , from WetPaint Web Site: http://www.wetpaint.com/page/about \n\n Technology has become such a great assessment and device to drive and promote learning in the classroom. I believe that it would behoove teachers to take advantages of these new tools and incorporate them in the classroom. Technology has open so many new ways to allow teachers and students to collaborate while learning, and WetPaint is the way to go. By using WetPaint, Teachers can create blogs for their classrooms; which may include, syllabus, information, assignment, etc. The students of the classroom can join the bog and post new information, ask questions, work on projects, etc. WetPaint can be used in classrooms of different ages. The teacher can disable ads and other information that children may not need to see. Parents can also read the blogs. This allows a chance for parents to know what their children are learning and promote these ideas at home. WetPaint is can become child-directed, if the teacher is will to make it that way. If teachers allow children a chance to learn about and experience this in the classroom, WetPaint can become a very child-directed technology. The possibilities are endless with using WetPaint.

Heard that this is a useful tool for collaborative authoring. Look forward to checking it out.

Free site that allows for collaborative learning as well as shared resources. I really enjoy the rubrics.

a community for educators to share and collaborate lesson plans and resources.

This is a great tool for collaborating when creating documents or projects. It combines email, text, voice messages, calendar, and storing and editing files in one safe place. It is easy and simple to use. Many of the features are designed to be self-explanatory. It is also safe and private. Nobody can join a group unless invited or given permission.

Free collaboration/networking tool

This is a collaborative document tool that has three different links so that you can customize your document depending on whether you are part of a workgroup, enterprise, or community. Teachers could use the workgroup version to collaborate on assignments or other things going on in the school. You could also use the community tool to collaborate with parents.

This is a collaborative document creation website mainly used for groups collaborating on mission statements, news articles, press releases, product reviews, petitions, etc. Most documents on this site are related to politics. It would not be appropriate to use in a classroom setting or with children. However, it would be a good tool for parents or teachers to use if they are concerned about a children's product, some type of legislation, or a community issue related to education.

This is a collaborative document site that allows any number of collaborators to access their documents from any computer and will remind you of changes made. The website has many ofher useful features. You could use this tool in any number of ways. Students could use this site, but younger students would need some help and guidance.

Although you can try the service for free, you will have to pay to continue this service for minimum of $44.99 a month for a group of 5 people. Can be pricy.

Recently learned about this new web-based tool and have tried out the feature which makes it very easy to send a video message by email. I am also interested to test out the chat feature, which would allow a group of people to hold a videochat (up to 20, according to the website), to see how well this works. If it works well, it could be used in many ways, to support meetings and collaborative work.

Site for sharing ideas, photos, stories. Anyone can access the blogsite, like any other website. Comments can be made on the blogs by the viewers. This tool allows the creator to personalize the page with themes and gadgets. This site could be used by teachers within the classroom for older students to do writing projects. Blogger could also be used as a parent/teacher collaboration tool in early childhood settings.

Fun and easy to use and customize. Good tool for education/classroom blogging.

This site was really easy to set up, but I've had a hard time using it to search for and follow other applicable blogs. Any suggestions?

Skype created a little piece of software that makes communicating with people around the world easy and fun. With Skype you can say hello or share a laugh with anyone, anywhere. And if both of you are on Skype, it's free.

This program is not suited well in servign as a web2.0 tool for children. This site can, however, be used as a tool of communication between caregivers and teachers. Though it does not have a direct influence on children, it can also be used to connect with other professionals to gain insight and advice.

Dabbleboard is an online whiteboard that allows users to visualize, explore, communicate, create, and share their work. Users can chose from two ways of drawing: freehand or computer-recognized shapes. Either way, users can create a multitude of pieces. Dabbleboard can be especially helpful for students. They can create flow charts, organizational charts, or mind maps to process school topics. As well, they can create comic strips, mark on uploaded pictures, or freehand drawings to accompany an original story. There is also a collaborative feature, that allows users to voice and video chate, share with or browse the public library, or send the link of their creation via the web. There are endless possibilities for students to express their creativity using Dabbleboard.

This can be a great graphic organizer to help students study for tests and communicate while doing projects.

very cool way to learn and study vocabulary words.....

This website is very creative and fun. However, I do not think it is appropriate for early childhood education. The vocabulary is way too advanced for this age group. Also, while the pictures and videos are funny many of them are inappropriate for children. It is definitely a website for older, more mature students.