Skype Connections

A very good friend of mine that taught with me at Eppes Middle School, Kyle Leonard, posted this from his personal blog Ukulelear:

"We had a lot of fun in fifth grade today - I have Skype unblocked on my classroom computer so I can videoconference with one of my students who is out of school for a long-term medical reasons. She watches the math lessons from her bed at home (not quite as bad as it might sound). We can all see her and talk, ask questions and make her feel like she is part of the classroom again.

I had a teacher gift card I won from Walmart so I ordered a HP webcam a couple of weeks ago, and now we are connected to the world. We went ahead and Skyped a school down in Alabama who wanted to partner read a book. We found out that kids in New York are just like kids in Alabama. They have a unicycle club and we have a ukulele club, so one of my uke kids went home and got a unicycle on eBay. School is cool again."

If used properly, imagine the connection that could be made with a simple tool like Skype. The internet can be a daunting and scary thing if it is not used properly. But with the proper guidance from a teacher that is not afraid to take a chance (and set up the ground rules) school can be "cool again."

The possibilities of new technologies like Skype are amazing. The chat feature can be used as an intercom feature in more realtime than email - it's an in-school instant messaging system, if it's limited to registered users. Imagine a teacher that can see the AP at her desk and type a quick message have a quick chat with a student that is a little too "hyper". The suprise of that in person visit that was made with an on-line tool is cool. That's without even using the video part of Skype.

There are other new programs like the more controversial Twitter, or the school version of Twitter/Wiki/Blogger in one - EDMOTO. No matter what the program is, the key theme is the same - to engage our students to be responsible for their learning.

Sometimes that means figuring out what the hype about Skype is all about...