Panwapa – Should I Ask for Some Fries with That?
April 21, 2008
The web is a wonderful place, full of exciting activities, and interesting information, but like many a Golden City, it has it’s potholes, and those become really noticeable when you teach primary age students (five to eight year olds here in the States). There are lots of sites that are safe, and many that are interactive, but there are few safe, non-commercial sites for kids to meet other children in a social network. The folks at Children’s Television Workshop are neatly filling this void by providing Panwapa. You may be wondering, what do I mean by social network? Social Networks are places like Beebo, and MySpace. Now, you’re wondering how could this be useful for education and safe enough to use in the classroom? Don’t worry about it, it’s all been designed with education in mind.
According to the press packet,
Panwapa, which means “here on this earth” in the Tshiluba language, aims to foster the foundation for global citizenship and community activism in young children, ages 4 to 7. Featuring an entirely new group of Muppet characters, Panwapa consists of an interactive website, www.panwapa.com…
Wow, they get to share their interests and culture, learn about other kids’ interests and culture, and get some geography on top of it! The site is set up for a high degree of safety. Children are assigned a word number combination based on their country (like USA15431). This does mean that you need to remember to print out the confirmation page for each student, so they can re-access their account. This may be a pain, but it means it will help you make the case for safety when you discuss using this site with parents and administrators. -ALICE MERCER
