Anybody using ePals?

I got an email about new free tools from ePals, including a blog and email for students. Just wondering if anyone has used these resources, including setting up ePals? If so, what did you think about them?
I know about a lot of free blog sites, but how about other email for students? We are currently using Gaggle.

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Permalink Reply by Nancy Bosch on October 9, 2007 at 5:22pm

I'm surprised epals email for kids is free. I thought when I looked a month or so ago there was a per kiddo charge. I would think you could find someone here at Classroom 2.0 who would would share penpal kids with you. I also wonder, with the numbers of ESL kids and kids from other countries in our schools could something be set up with them and through people they might know who live in their home countries. Just a thought.

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Permalink Reply by Nancy Bosch on October 10, 2007 at 7:52pm

I've used think.com for student email (K-6) for about five years--it fills the bill for security, as a matter of fact it's too closed for my taste but the kids love it and love the rinky dink web space that goes a long with it. Good Luck in your future projects.

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Permalink Reply by Or-Tal Kiriati on March 22, 2008 at 10:49am

We set up an account for the school with google (that's http://partnerpage.google.com) and it gives us, among other things, the option to set up an email box for each student or teacher for free. The main advantages are that this is a web based email you can read anywhere, but you can also set up a pop access so it will work with your outlook or other email programs.
Of course the other advantages are included in the page you get. Ours is start.hillels.info (using the school's domain) and each user gets to personalize it to his or her needs and wants.

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Permalink Reply by Richard Carey on October 10, 2007 at 8:19pm

I've worked with ePals twice: first when I brought them in as the student-safe email service povider for Scholastic.com, then again several years later for service offered by Cablevision. Having vetted their technology and worked with the founders, I can vouch they've got a reliable product and a commitment to providing a safe email, blogging and collaborative environment. One post here made reference to the closed nature of the ePals platform but actually that's the whole point, otherwise it wouldn't be possible to keep out those with unsavory motives. You could say that ePals offers social media tools with training wheels but they serve a purpose. I'm sure glad I had out-riggers when I was learning to ride a bike back in the day, and when I didn't need 'em anymore off they came. Same deal with ePals.

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Permalink Reply by Nancy Bosch on October 10, 2007 at 8:24pm

I said think.com is too closed for my liking. I've never used epals. N.

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Permalink Reply by Richard Carey on October 11, 2007 at 9:16am

Ooops. My bad.

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Permalink Reply by Nancy Bosch on October 11, 2007 at 9:48am

I actually looked at epals as a think.com alternative but there was a fee for student email when I looked, another poster said it was now free. N

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Permalink Reply by Richard Carey on October 11, 2007 at 9:55am

Since their recent merger with In2Books the original ePals email service is free as a loss leader. Not sure about their blogging or global community products. Suggest you visit www.epals.com for the latest.

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Permalink Reply by Jane Krauss on March 21, 2008 at 9:35am

Interesting about ePals, it's now free because it's been reimagined as an engine for social good. This NYT article explains the purpose and the business model that allows free service to education. I liked Richard's post about training wheels... that's what I'm looking for. Investigating ePals now...

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Permalink Reply by Dr. Kari Stubbs on November 20, 2008 at 8:31am

Richard, thanks for sharing your personal insight!

ePals has the worlds's largest and fastest growing social network for education.... PLUS it provides access to online communication tools (SchoolMail and SchoolBlog). There are no pop ads in student email! AND yes, it's now all free! ePals has partnered with a variety of other educational companies, including National Geographic. It's also the global community on the Intel Classmate PC. As a result, they are now able to offer their safe and protected tools to educators and students for free.

Here's a training and resource blog to help you get started! http://sites.epals.com/ePalsTraining/

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Permalink Reply by Erich Stephen on November 20, 2008 at 12:01pm

The down side of epals is that only one teacher can monitor a student. Works great in elementary school, but challenging in a high school or middle school where more than one teacher wants to utilize it at the same time. You could have one teacher monitor the entire school, but that gets kind if hectic and teachers can't take advantage of the class emailing tool.

I haven't really played with the collaborative side of it too much, but it appears to be worth while.