This is a technology fairy tale.

It's about how two classrooms across town were connected via Skype video so that Nada Cuvalo's six-graders read stories inspired by Ann McNamara's third-graders.

The local paper, the Waltham (Mass.) Tribune described it as "Once upon a Skype: Students broadcast stories using Web cams."

The Tribune explained the process:

"The older children recently sent surveys to the younger children through the mail. The surveys asked third-graders a series of questions of what kinds of settings, characters and plots they would like to see in fairy tales. Third-graders answered the surveys, teachers mailed them back and Cuvalo's class wrote individual stories for them."

"We had never done anything like this before so we wanted to make sure it went smoothly," Sandra Malec, the school district tech expert, said. "The children were so enthusiastic about it. We were trying to explain to them what was going to happen and I don't think they knew what was going to happen until those sixth-graders came on the screen."

Cuvalo's class read excerpts from stories they wrote standing before a webcam. A question-and-answer session followed, when both classes interacted for the first time.

McNamara told the Tribune both teachers saw what each other looked like for the first time yesterday through Skype.

"This is the first time I'm collaborating with a teacher from a new school. It was a new experiment and it seemed fairly easy," McNamara said. "It was really a lot of fun."

What is it about Skype and fairy tales?

Professor Sugata Mitra, a technology education professor at Newcastle University in the UK, who was the inspiration for Academy Award-winning movie, "Slumdog Millionaire," is having British "grannies" tell fairy tales to kids in Indian slums. The goal is to improve their English.

Any else with Skype fairy tales to share? Let me know.