Looking to Skype with Other Schools / Experts

Hello everyone. I am a Middle School principal in Illinois and looking for opportunities to incorporate some distance contact with students or people who feel they can share expertise in various areas.

Let me know your pleasure. We have teachers in 6th 7th and 8th grades looking for opportunities in all subject areas.

In the end, the other party (parties) will help us decide how to best incorporate and utilize the technology. A bit like reverse engineering - we want to explore the technology first and find ways to tie it back to curriculum / standards.

Also, anyone with successful experiences, please feel free to share as we are constantly looking for ideas.

Thanks

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Permalink Reply by John Ingle on January 12, 2009 at 2:12pm

Hello Traci, I teach second grade in Kingston, Tennessee. We are the first classroom to do video conferencing in our school district and we are really enjoying it. I had to come up with some sort of parental release (for live video feed) since no one had ever done it before thus no form for parents to sign. Our Skype name is "Kingston Elementary" if you ever have a classroom want to talk! Thanks!

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Permalink Reply by Sheri Sandler on March 8, 2009 at 2:19pm

Hi! I am a k - 5 computer teacher in Millburn, NJ. We have just started using Skype to talk to other schools in the town, state and country. We are looking for other school is talk to, read to and practice our Spanish.
If interested please email: sandler@millburn.org

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Permalink Reply by Mea on January 6, 2009 at 12:25pm

a wiki skype directory for teachers! http://skypeinschools.pbwiki.com/

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Permalink Reply by Steve Hargadon on January 6, 2009 at 6:06pm

I love it!

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Permalink Reply by Susan on January 7, 2009 at 7:03pm

Skype about what topic? Interested in skype with 8th grade U.S. History students? I have wanted to have a live debate with another history classroom. What do you think about this possibility?

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Permalink Reply by Dan Storchan on March 8, 2009 at 7:27pm

This looks great, Mea. I am going to share this directory with some teachers and administrators I work with. I'm wondering why they don't call it "Global Collaborations" in Schools, though.

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Permalink Reply by Dan Froelich on February 16, 2009 at 10:37am

Check out http://skypeinschools.pbwiki.com We'd be glad to have you in our group!

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Permalink Reply by Yvonne Miller on March 14, 2009 at 3:07pm

I had 7th graders Skype with medical students for a disease project. They conducted an iSearch, developed questions after researching a disease and interviewed med students from a local medical university. I contacted the librarian at the university and after some work, we were able to skype with experts. It was great! If you have a specific content area you want experts for, inquire with a librarian at your state universities. Right now I am looking for experts for students researching a topic of their choice. It much more difficult to find 25 different experts for a variety of topics. Maybe a senior group of some kind.

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Permalink Reply by Steve Hargadon on March 14, 2009 at 4:46pm

Hi, Yvonne. What a GREAT story. I'm doing a Future of Education interview on April 9th (http://www.futureofeducation.com) on the "long tail" in education, and this experience would be perfect to discuss. Any interest in being a part of that show?

Another option that might be really fun would be to schedule another interview that could actually involve your students being a part of it. Think that's worth pursuing?