Hi everyone! We’re doing a small research study with teachers in Postcrossing this month and could use the help of teachers who are new to the project. I’ve contacted quite a few teachers who are already doing Postcrossing with their own classrooms, but I’m interested in hearing from new teachers who are considering it, but have not yet opened accounts for their students to exchange postcards with others.
Our goal is to try to understand the teacher and students’ goals for their participation in Postcrossing (learning geography, practicing languages or writing, interacting with different cultures or children, etc), as well as the limitations of the site in the classroom context. Every teacher does Postcrossing a little differently with their own students, so we’d like to try to get to know your needs as a teacher a little better, in order to improve the website for schools.
This study will take the form of a 45min conversation with Helen (aka @scopemouth), a usability researcher who is also a postcrosser. She’ll ask you some questions about postcards and your classroom, and together you’ll try to imagine what the ideal Postcrossing format would be for your classroom.
If you have a bit of time to help us improve Postcrossing for schools, let me know! We’d really appreciate your feedback and help!
Hi, I’m about to open an account for my class. I still have to figure out some details but I’ve already had so many great experiences with my private account that I really want to do it at school. So feel free to contact me. Silke
I began with a PC school account as I was teacher in a bilingual project. When I left it, I turned my account to inactive. However, I’m considering to re-open it although I teach no longer in English, I’m figuring out how to do it.
I’ve tried Postcrossing with a class a few years ago and am thinking about reactivating that account this year for my English Class (second year of learning, age 9/10), it’s a different class than last time. I don’t have finished thinking about how to include Postcrossing into the language lessons.
I haven‘t tried using PC at school. Most of my kids are in middle school level and I don‘t know if postcards would fit.
With 8-graders I really enjoyed a letter-exchange we had with a US class throughout a whole school year. The teacher and me found each other in the old teacher-forum As letters are longer than postcards there is more to write for older kids.
I just celebrated my first Postcrossiversary and was thinking the same thing: how can I use postcard exchange through Postcrossing to help my English students to learn language skills? If you need more participants for your research, I’d be willing!
Many thanks to all teachers who’ve responded to the screener survey
Over the next few days, I’ll be reaching out to as many of you as I can to schedule our video chat - keep your eyes out for a Postcrossing message from me, scopemouth!
I have tried postcrossing last year with my pupils, but I made an account for the class and I had 5 of them send a postcard every week or so. I lost a lot of time with it so this year I have decided to have them all make a login, with a group code. I hope this will work better (and faster).
Thank you for the offer @lellybelly04! At the moment, @scopemouth is already wrapping up this study, but I’ll make a note of your username if we need further contacts for the future — thank you!
I’m going to close this topic here for now, since we should be almost done with these. Thank you to everyone who participated!
As letters are longer than postcards there is more to write for older kids.
