Peer Conferencing Goes Global!!! 

     For most writers, it is important to have an audience.  This is very important during adolescence when a writer is just beginning to develop a sense of his or her own voice in writing.  In the classroom, most teachers give their writing students opportunities to work in groups and discuss their writing.  These peer conferences are helpful in that they give the students feedback from people their own age.  Now, with the availability of the internet in many schools, teachers are finding ways to connect their students with peers from schools worldwide to share and comment on one another's writing.
     In my research, I found numerous examples of teachers who have successfully utilized the internet, and specifically e-mail, to establish peer conferencing partners for their students.  For instance,  Donna Graves, an 8th Grade teacher,  had her English class use the internet to correspond with pen pals worldwide, utilize bulletin boards, and get responses to their creative writing. She found that utilizing internet resources tied into her curriculum by connecting to cooperative learning objectives (the students worked in teams while on the computers).  It also helped the students to gain insight into other cultures;  for example, during a period of unrest in Russia, her students were receiving daily e-mail messages from Russian students which helped to give Graves' students "a new appreciation of freedom" (44).  Graves made use of an online conference called WorldClassroom which helps teachers to make connections with other classrooms worldwide.
    Through my research on the internet, I have found other sites which also help teachers to connect to peers for their students worldwide.  One such source is Inter cultural E-Mail Classroom Connections a free service that helps teachers link with partners in other countries and cultures for e-mail classroom pen pal and project exchanges.  It has been helping teachers since 1992, and currently has approximately "7200 teachers in 79 countries" participating. I think this is a good indication that linking students with peers worldwide is a popular and exciting way for teachers to help their students find a "real" audience of peers for their writing.