ePals-a project based social learning network

ePals-The Safe Social Learning Network.
As it is described on the introduction, ePals has two main parts--Schools&Districts, and Companies&Organizations, the former one includes Global Community, School Mail, Learning Space, In 2 books.
I found a very useful function of ePals, the Global Community. When I first opened this website, I noticed there is a list of many countries national flags, then I know this the world's largest network of K-12 classrooms. It offers a service without cost that educators can access this global community to find collaborative projects, join discussions and search thousands of classroom profiles. And here is the important thing, it is not random content based, the project is authentic, so educators do not have to worry about if students will learn something not suitable. Moreover the lesson is quite beneficial to curriculum learning.
As a big fan of National Geographic fan, I already collected three years of whole collection issues, and watching its program for over ten years. I always thinking how can I incorporate this quite education program into my teaching. Now I found a useful tool step ahead of my thought--ePal.
This email-based collaborative projects with digital content from National Geographic, I can use the interesting topic from the issue, and raise some questions about the story, it is quite an authentic English reading material, it could be assigned homework reading, or intensive reading in classroom, after reading, teacher can analyze the content question or offer some new vocabulary. Through emails, students can exchange ideas about the reading, and there is no barrier between countries, age. How wonderful it is!