DLTK's Discussion Group Archives - Dec/00 to Jul/01
From: Leanne
Date: 7/30/01
Time: 11:51:54 AM
Remote Name: 24.70.8.29
The hard thing about running a pen pals site is balancing the need to give out personal info to be penpals with the safety issues surrounding the internet.
When you have an e-penpal you need to give an email address and such and it's hard to know if the person you're talking to is who they say they are.
When you have a regular penpal you find on the internet, you have to give out your real address and such on-line which of course has risks inherent.
The "old fashioned" way of corresponding had a certain level of safety. For example, you could see that the stamp came from / was postmarked in the country the person claimed to be from. You could tell (somewhat) from the handwriting what age the person was... that sort of thing.
That's why penpal websites seem so complicated. Good ones typically require parental permission, passwords, id's and all sorts of odd hoops that parents and teachers have to jump through. As difficult and odd as those hoops may be, it's unlikely that a "bad guy" will bother or be able to jump through them.
I hope that made sense...?
Here are a couple of penpal sites you might want to try... just do it on your own (without your kids) the first go 'round so you can wade through all the protection stuff without them "are we there yet?"'ing you *grin*. I haven't tried all of these (we have enough trouble keeping up with our website mail without adopting anyone else *grin*). I have read positive reviews from sources I use frequently, though
TEACHERS http://www.teaching.com/keypals/
GIRLS http://www.agirlsworld.com/geri/penpal/index.html
GENERAL http://www.ks-connection.org/
But, you know... my favorite way to find a penpal is to adopt a child through one of the save the children organizations -- two birds, one stone *smile*
Leanne