To be honest I have been using Skype for the last 2 and half years. My husband works from home for an Engineering software company and he has a team in Pakistan that he works with as well as talking to clients all over the world so he discovered Skype probably 4 years ago and has been using it ever since. Many times his Skype connection is much clearer than our cell phones at home! Anyway, when our district got laptops for all teachers I installed Skype and would use it to talk to my hubby at home from the different locations where the tech and library teams were doing "laptop rollout" --- it worked great! I actually told several folks on the tech team about it and had many of them using it by the end of that year.
So back to using Skype in schools --- a place I had managed to wander from!
I can see many uses for Skype in the classroom. It would be a wonderful way to communicate with students in classes from other schools all over the world, kind of like "real time" pen pals! Because you can also use a webcam with Skype it would allow you see your class friends in their own atmosphere and encourage real discussions about differences in education in various countries. Another great way to use Skype was demonstrated by the Texas Association of School Library Administrators at their annual conference this past June. Although I had to miss the conference due to other district commitments, I did get to hear all about it both from my esteemed colleagues and through the comments left on the TASLA back channel. What happened is that one of the presenters was able to present to the group and exchange ideas from Australia via a Skype connection. How cool!!! Just think, with Skype your class could participate in presentations and class discussions with professors, researchers, and others all over the world!
In conclusion, Skype is waaaaaaaay cool!
Liz
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