Friday, July 20, 2007
Using Skype
Skype was easy to install on my computer and set up. When I tried talking to someone who was also using Skype, the voice quality was good most of the time for about the first 5 minutes and then it started to cut out. A message popped up that we both needed to close Skype and reboot it. Otherwise it was very clear and easy to use. I can see where there are many ways it could be used in the educational setting especially with the conference call feature. Teaching out in a rural community and in a small high school, there is only one other part time special education teacher in my building to confer with. Skype could be used by our special education cooperative to hold information meetings where we could voice our concerns, receive ideas for help, or receive new legislative information. Sometimes it is difficult to get everyone needed at an IEP meeting and maybe Skype could be used for that. Quite often we have students who are homebound or hospitalized for various reasons and miss out on class lectures. By using Skype they could listen in on the class and even participate. Then there are all of the opportunities for students to talk to experts in different fields or classes from different areas of the world. Skype provides us with another option for easy communication and collaboration in the classroom.
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3 comments:
This sounds perfect for your situation where you don't have face to face contact with alot of other teachers. Additionally for those students that are ill or disabled, it would also be ideal in order to keep up with the lessons.
Karen T
Mindy, great idea for homebound students to participate in class in real time.
Lee Anne
Skype sounds like a perfect tool for you to use. Sometimes it's hard to give students who are hombound work to do and Skype would be a great resource for communicating and sharing information.
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