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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.

"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.

Free private online collaboration sites for teachers to engage students

Jooners is a free Web site focused on communication and collaboration between schools and parents. Its e-mail and scheduling Web site allows parents to have immediate online access to school-wide information, such as calendars, events, after-school programs and field trip information. Parents and teachers can arrange sign-up lists for any event that needs parental support, such as book fairs or PTA fundraisers, and coordinate classroom volunteers.

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 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.

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.

Storybird is an online story creator. It is a place where people can easily create their own stories and collaborate with others if desired. You can also read stories created by other users. This site is very easy to navigate and purposefully created to be child friendly, but is also appropriate for adults.

I really like Storybird as a website that offers story creation. Many websites that allow users to create a story are very complex and may take days and days of work. Storybird seems a bit more simplistic which would make it easier for young children to use. I think online story creating could be a great idea for teachers to incorporate into the classroom.

I stumbled upon this free digital storytelling site and think it's pretty cool. It's a service that uses collaborative storytelling to connect children and families. Two or more people create a Storybird by writing their own text and inserting artwork from an extensive library. The final storybook can be shared privately or publicly with an online community.

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.

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.

The Early Childhood Technology Collaborative (ECTC). ECTC is a group of three early childhood technologists with lots of questions: Lilla Dale McManis, Ph.D. from Hatch Early Learning, Karen Nemeth, Ed.M. from Language Castle, and Fran Simon, M.Ed. from Engagement Strategies.

EdcampME is a FREE technology un-conference for preK-12 educators across the state/region interested in sharing, learning and collaborating about use of technology in the classroom. A conference for teachers, by teachers! Learn more and register here! Date: March 31st at the Waynflete School, Portland, ME

Record keeping with google docs, forms, and spreadsheets. Invite collaboration across school personnel and with parents too.