Hello Everyone . . . Susan asked, "Has anyone ever used ePals to collaborate with another classroom? If you have can you tell me a little about it."

I told her that I have used VoiceThread and ed.voicethread but never used ePals. Is there someone out there who can help her out?

thx!

We recently had one of our members post the following . . . "I am looking into school issued email to help with this but was wondering what everyone's experience has been with this. I would LOVE to have my students create a user account so they can post to Wiki's, blogs, social bookmarking sites but do not want to run into COPPA problems."

does anyone have any experience to share?

Share some of the successes and obstacles you have faced while integrating these technologies into your classroom. Please try to be constructive w/in your descriptions.

J

Hello Heather and thank you for commenting! I do not know that much about COPPA abut I do know there are some excellent resources available on the web. The Federal Trade Administration, the folks who enforce the law, have an extremely helpful website: http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/edcams/kidzprivacy/teachers.htm . . . (I Diigoed this link for anyone following this strand). If you visit the site you will note that the FTC still provides teachers "in loco parentis," which allow you the teacher to make decisions about what personal information your students may provide. I seriously doubt that any teacher these days would want to take on such enormous responsibility, but it is nice to know it is an option. I would strongly suggest that you check with you school's student privacy policy.

Work around . . . it is possible as the teacher on some sites to create a private group and then let all of your students share one common login to a site or group. Another solution I have used is to contact he creators or publishers of a site and ask if they would create a class account from me. This way no student is supplying any personal information.

Great questions and I hope someone else in the group will respond. I will make this a separate discussion.

J
Heather Ciccone wrote:
> I work in a middle school and because of COPPA (which I agree with), it's difficult to use many WEB 2.0 tools in the classroom with students. Many of them need to join by entering an email address which they may or may not have at that age. I am looking into school issued email to help with this but was wondering what everyone's experience has been with this. I would LOVE to have my students create a user account so they can post to Wiki's, blogs, social bookmarking sites but do not want to run into COPPA problems.
>
> http://www.coppa.org/comply.htm
>
> Thanks for any help.
>
> Joe Dixon wrote:
> > Share some of the successes and obstacles you have faced while integrating these technologies into your classroom. Please try to be constructive w/in your descriptions.
> >
> > J