I have used Skype to read aloud to another classroom on the other side of the county. I will be using it this year to connect to a class in Hawaii and will try to use it for reading, science and social studies.
"There's been a lot information -- and misinformation -- available about whether Skype is dangerous to corporate networks and individual users. How dangerous is it? In this article, I'll separate the truth from the myths when it comes to Skype vulnerabilities."
The mission of the Skype an Author Network is to provide K-12 teachers and librarians with a way to connect authors, books, and young readers through virtual visits.
Great concept = cheap failure. We have the opportunity for almost everything we create to be a work in progress. You can always learn and build upon your initial attempts. This should give people more freedom to try without the feeling of absolute and unrecoverable failure.
Not just cheap failure but also instant failure, which is important to our students as well. We talk about rapid prototyping in the program and some in my classroom, which I think is an important note about this technology and an important concept for our students to grasp/be able to deal with. It's a vehicle for learning.
Instead of vicariously learning from textbooks or Web research, my students get firsthand information from the people who actually live in the places they are studying.
"To make the most of videoconferences, teachers must introduce students to a set of skills that are not always necessary in traditional classrooms.
The tools and resources on this page can help teachers to structure meaningful learning experiences with videoconferences. "