Silvia Tolisano calls her blog "Langwitches." That's the fun way of saying she's a language teacher.

Over the past three years as technology integration facilitator at San José Episcopal Day School in Jacksonville FL, she's been using the magic of technology, including Skype, to teach preschoolers through six graders, aged 4 through 11, about the world outside their classroom.

For example. a traveling teacher set up a webcam to share views in the classroom in Florida of Volcán Arenal, the most active volcano in Costa Rica.

(Coincidentally, here's a photo of the volcano that took in 2004 The locals called it the "oso," or bear because it roars.)

Five days ago, Tolisano announced a major expansion of the program with "Around the World with 80 Schools" in her blog, Langwitches: The Magic of Learning through Technology.

By week's end, she had signed up more than 50 schools. Most are in the US, but she also has linked up with schools in a dozen other countries. These include Argentina, Australia, Canada, China, England, Estonia, Israel, Malaysia, New Zealand, Peru, Spain and Thailand.

She's looking for schools in Africa and Europe in all grade levels, including high schools. You can contact her through her blog.

At the very least, students will say "hi," "shalom," "guten tag," "buenos dias," etc. to each other. They may serenade each other with sons. But the conversations will last as long as five minutes and involve geography, social studies, writing and math.

Tolisano doesn't see language as a barrier: most of the schools are English-speaking.
The rub is with time zones, such as a school in Thailand with which there is a 12-hour difference. "We're never in school at the same time as the school in Thailand," she said.

But Tolisano, a technologist and teacher, is a problem-solver: "We'll have picnic dinners and sleepovers to make Skype calls to Australia and New Zealand."