PenPal Schools
On PenPal Schools, children from all over the world collaborate to create original projects. Children design robots, invent solutions to environmental challenges, make art, write poems, interview community leaders, swap recipes, create postcards, solve math problems, and much more! Along the way, children make friends, understand new perspectives, and practice literacy and online communication skills. Global connections are so effective in boosting engagement and learning that PenPal Schools won Best Edtech of the Year from Common Sense Education.
With the new parent mobile app, parents can follow their child’s progress in school and continue learning at home! Parents can see the projects that their child creates, monitor communication with PenPals, and enroll their child in global topics and challenges.
PenPal Schools adheres to strict child safety and privacy laws and is trusted by over 10,000 schools in 150 countries. Children do not provide any personally identifiable information (last name, email, etc) and all communication data is encrypted. Children can only join when invited by a verified teacher or parent. Teachers and parents can monitor all messages and flag inappropriate behavior. If your child engages in inappropriate behavior, you will be notified and provided with a recommended protocol to discuss respectful behavior and digital citizenship.
PenPal Schools is based in Austin, TX USA. Our mission is to help children everywhere develop the academic and social-emotional skills necessary to succeed in school, career, and life. PenPal Schools has connected over 400,000 children, won numerous international awards and was recognized by President Obama as a leading social enterprise.
Category : Education
Reviews (5)
Even after you have signed up it's unclear what this platform actually offers. There's plenty of vague, fuzzy stuff about connecting your child to people around the world but nothing specific. They also allow children to sign up who are clearly far too young to be able to use any of the content. This is not clear until after you've signed up and shared your child's information and there is no way to delete the account. Don't use if you care about your child's privacy!
This is a wonderful learning app! My kid connects with penpals around the world to practice reading and writing, and it gives us all something really neat to tall about at the dinner table.
Only works if your child is in an actual school, no option for Homeschooling parents.
Only work with pc
I was very excited with the idea to get my kids working in the topics the program says to offer but unfortunately we were never able to use it simply because the App didn't work properly. I have two kids but it never allowed me to enroll my second child. I tried getting help from the developers but we couldn't make it work and I didn't feel they took the time to understand what our problem was. It was a terrible waste of time. I haven't been able to get a refund.