Skype in the Classroom - New Global Community for Educators

[Sarita Pillai]

Skype has launched a global community for educators called Skype in the classroom. The free service connects teachers from around the world to allow them to communicate, collaborate on projects, draw expertise from one another, and share learning materials and best practices. It also serves as a launchpad for connecting students with their peers in classrooms across the planet using Skype video.  You can read more in this week's issue of T.H.E. Journal.

 

Are you currently experimenting with, or using, Skype in your classroom?

[Mary Henton]

Two international connections I know about from this past year are (1) a high school English class in Minnesota who collaborated with a group of university students in DR Congo using PBWorks and Skype; and (2) middle school students in Ohio who Skyped with kids in Uganda.

Would love to hear what other connections people are making and to what advantage, educationally and culturally.

[Sarita Pillai]

Thanks Elaine - I'm familiar with ePals, thanks for the reminder about it!  Are you currently using it and if so, how?

[Elaine Maggioli]

Found another site that connects teachers globally and can be used with Skype- see epals.com

[Sarita Pillai]

Thanks Karolee and Christopher.  I agree, the potential for Skype to make the world a smaller learning community is great!  I very often opt to use it now for my own project related work.  The call and video clarity are usual very good on high bandwidth connections.  I'll be curious to watch the progress of Skype In The Classroom and see what happens with it in terms of teacher/classroom adoption.  Thanks again for sharing your thoughts!

[Karolee Smiley]

Its exciting to see the new tools and support for connecting classrooms. 

I have used teleconferencing to connect classrooms before, but it could be difficult to coordinate the calls with the district office IT. 

Skype is very accessible.  It opens up a whole new avenue for students to see a world beyond their local community.  Whether I connected to a school on the other side of town, across the country or to another country, I found my students we surprised about many of the cultural differences but they also learned how similar they all are as well.

I hope I can plan some Skype projects next year!

[Christopher Andersen]

The "project collaboration" aspect is something I want to jump into, either by joining into a project that already exists or by starting something of my own. I'm also interested in the strong international flavor of the participants, but I guess that isn't a surprise since Skype started in Europe (Luxembourg, I think).