For the most part, communication on the internet will take place during our scheduled Computer Lab time. We are guaranteed this time once each week. For additional communications (preferably on Friday but depending on when our ePals are available) we will use the Laptop Carts to log in to our accounts. These will need to be signed-out and may not be available every Friday, the alternative will be to have small groups of students use the computers in our classroom and rotate students throughout the course of the day. While the last solution is not an ideal way to communicate with our ePals, we can certainly make it work if no other means are available.
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We will communicate with our ePals over the course of 15 weeks. A minimum of five emails will be sent and five received for a total of 10 email exchanges--although this number is flexible, this minimum number is factored into the classroom instruction schedule. For the instructional time between each email, classroom instruction will follow the same themes as the email schedule. These lessons will be enhanced through research and expository readings. The themes will be integrated in instruction based on the Common Core State Standards for third grade Writing and Social Studies. This will include some research of the community and culture of the students' ePal as well as research of the students’ own community and culture. Our goal for this project is to compare and contrast communities and cultures with our ePals and create a digital presentation as a part of our final project.
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