skype

Many of the tools that I use on my blog are "just fun to use". I find them on other people's blogs and then try them myself. There isn't any real pedagogy involved. However, Skype is one of those tools that involve pedagogy as does Voicethread. My purpose to use skype was we were growing butterflies in my grade two classroom last Spring and I wanted my class to communicate with another class that was doing butterflies. I joined Classroom 2.0 about this same time and I was reading in the Forum section that someone was looking for a class to skype with that was growing butterflies. It turned out that they were in Oregon in the U.S. To prepare for the call we brainstormed 5 questions that we could ask. We did this in small groups. One person from each group was chosen to ask the question. That person sat in front of the computer to ask the question. The class in Portland also asked us questions. It was an authentic audience. We learned so much from that call. Their time was 3 hours earlier. They liked webkins, like my class did. We taught them a few words in french. We had also studied about leatherback turtles and we spoke to someone who actually saw one. The kids loved the call. It was a very positive learning experience.

[|Skype] - is free software that allows users to instant message, make phone calls and video conference over the internet. I have had two wonderful video conference experiences using skype. The first one was last year. We had a skype conference call with a class in Portland, Oregon about butterflies. We also got to ask other questions. The kids learned that they were a lot alike. They had similar interests. We also skyped with a class this year in Grosse Ile, QC. This was a small community on an island. We learned that they only had one school bus (We have 20) and their Dads' were all fishermen. We had a lot of questions for them. You need to download skype from the internet. Get an account and a password. You can also search for other users of skype.

Here is part of a video of my class doing the skype call with Jane Kraus in Portland, OR. This is part l - I uploaded it to Vimeo. Go to Vimeo.com and you can get a free account. media type="custom" key="3244462"