Endless Possibilities of SKYPE

http://www.flickr.com/photos/malthe/ / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

In getting more familiar with a new technology this week, I really wanted to look more into how teachers have used Skype (a software application that allows people to make free video and voice calls over the Internet) to liven up their lesson plans. Search results brought about my discovery of this blog. The blogger has listed "50 Awesome Ways to Use Skype in the Classroom".

Out of the fifty, here are a few of my favorite:

1. Use Skype to connect your language classroom to a classroom abroad

With Skype's newer feature of viewing video in full screen mode it makes it easier for classroom use. This video chatting creates a link for students to native speakers. The best way you can learn a language the way a native uses it is to, simply, learn it from the source - the native speaker. Using Skype in this way opens the door and, more so, tears down the classroom walls to a world foreign to the language learner.

2. Take your students on a field trip

Although, a field trip by live video, while sitting in an uncomfortable and stiff desk isn't exactly an ideal experience or opportunity for learning for students -- especially when compared to physically being somewhere, tasting, smelling, seeing, touching, and hearing things first-hand -- Skype makes a "field trip" possible when they can't physically go on one.

Understandably, in today's economy, a field trip just may not be possible because of budgetary constraints. Whether the students are actually at the zoo or taking a tour of it with Skype, they're still able to see and learn from a real-life experience; they're not just reading about animals from a textbook or a lecture from a teacher.

Something more exciting... taking a Skype field trip to a place outside of the state, the country, the continent!
I would go crazy with this if it was easy to do....
I could take my students to see an art museum in France, the Taj Mahal, tour of the swamp land in Florida, down under to Australia, the Andes Mountains in South America, Poland, Italy, Greece, Africa, Russia, Greenland, etc; I could go on and on. BUT this seems like wishful thinking; I wonder how extravagantly teachers have been able utilize a Skype for this type of "field trip".

3. Parent-teacher conferences via Skype
The reality is that there are parents that would really like to be able to find the time to meet with their children's teachers, but work or other obligations get in the way. Skype could make these meetings easier for parents to schedule into their busy days, without having to leave work and make the trip out to the school.

Besides these examples, the blog also provides links for tutorials of Skype and connections to other teachers using Skype around the world.

google docs as a teaching tool

To get started I took a Google Docs Tour and found a video where teachers have only good things to say about the new technology (obviously a Google promotion, but what they say is true). Google docs has made some classes, where computers are available in schools, a lot more interactive; people learn, the best, by doing, and not just by listening to a teacher's lecture. In the video the teachers found that students are more excited to learn and have raised the level of their work because they know that a lot more people will be looking and criticizing their work; especially, if they publish their work onto the web for all of their parents and peers to view. http://www.flickr.com/photos/14922438@N00/ /CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

A good way a teacher can incorporate Google Docs is in a Language Arts/English class. When writing papers, students can create their own documents. To get started they can type their rough drafts and after they're done, share their document with other students and the teacher, who can then edit the draft. Utilizing the revision history will help in finishing up a final copy that will be published and submitted to the teacher.

Another way Google Docs is useful for teachers is to post quizzes. Check out the "how-to" slideshow in the blog, Free Technology For Teachers.

Tech experience in the classroom

Breakdown: first placement for an MSU TE course, with around 20 first graders, but almost no sign of technology integration. All I saw was a radio. Nevertheless, I only spent two hours observing out a single day, of a week, of an entire school year. Understandably, I don't have any technology uses to report on thus far. In the mean time...

Last year for my TE 250 course, I decided to volunteer at the Refugee Development Center in Lansing. The kids and adults came for extra help with homework, reading, writing, etc. Also, one of the main reasons they would come was to be able to use the computers. Whether you need a computer to use the Internet to do research or to type a paper, it's vital to have a computer as a student these days. Most of these students just moved to the U.S. and can't afford to buy a computer as well as Internet access. First, they had to finish up any homework or work on a project that didn't require a computer and then they were awarded with computer privileges.

Teachers go on and assign projects, essays, etc., that require research to be done by the students. This generation of youngsters would probably never think to go to a library and manually look through hundreds of books that may have something to do with what they're researching and that's not a horrible thing. The reality is that all the information of the world is online. Most importantly, unlike books, whatever information you may find on the Internet can be updated with a snap of your fingers. Also, it's just more effective to search online. A student could spend hours, days, even weeks, searching for books and tracking them down. Then, it's time to read through the dozens of books only to find that two of them are helpful. One of my teachers had us do research for an essay by using, mostly, books and magazines as sources; she wanted us to experience and find value in the way research was done before the computer was invented.

How do you feel about this? Do you think children of today's world should even bother having to ever do research, solely, by using hard copies of books, magazines, etc.? Is that important in such when technology is constantly developing and getting better, faster, easier to use?