August 2009

Illustration by Marc Rosenthal on School Library Journal

Using Skype in the classroom is a great way to make learning come alive for students. Howard on the US blog recently mentioned how in the US authors are visiting classrooms to meet students and students are learning about islands around the world. What else can Skype do in the classroom?

Well, Ms. Ward, author of the Teacher Et Cetera blog, mentions these uses in this informative blog post on Skype in the classroom:

• Connect your class to virtual penpals
• Help students hear native speakers when learning a foreign language
• Collaborate with another class on a joint research project
• Bring authors into your classroom via Skype
• Learn about another culture by connecting students to a classroom from that culture
• Learn about geography from students living in an area you are studying
• Bring professionals from your content area to "speak" in your classroom
• Conduct interviews
• Create pod- and screencasts with students from other parts of the world
• Study the same book with another class and hold web book talks
• Have students in your class create virtual presentations for students in other schools
• Attend a webinar with your students

Other great sources of information include the Global Education Collaborative, the Skype in Schools wiki, this article on School Library Journal, and this list of international classrooms interested in participating.

Classrooms are using Skype across the world--like this class in the US who caught up with a former classmate who had moved to Kenya with her family--to across the city, like these classes of third and sixth-graders in Waltham, MA telling each other stories (via Skype Journal):

Do you know of any other great uses for or examples of Skype in the classroom? Let us know in the comments!