Looking for Middle School Skype Casters

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Ginger Lewman on May 19, 2007 at 11:18am

I think we'd totally be up for that!

I will say that we have one Tuesday left in our school year, but I think I'd LOVE to have my kids do this for our afternoon! A few of us have messed around with Skype a bit this year, but this will be an excellent opportunity for them to actually see the benefits!

I work with grades 5-8 in KS with very bright students who usually like to talk. What topics could we address? Would we want to get them together first to let them "sniff each other out" for a bit before we drop into an interview?

I do plan to have kids come back over the summer for some fun, friendship, and computer work...it's my sneaky way to get them to do year-round schooling! I'm keeping their laptops over the summer, but kids who come to me with quality projects in mind can keep them once we've done the computer-health check up at the end of the year.

Permalink Reply by Madeline (Slovenz) Brownstone on May 19, 2007 at 11:30am

Our year is winding down too. In fact, this Tuesday I will have a diminished group because some are attending regents' exam prep classes starting this week. But I'm bound to have at least 3 8th grade girls ready to gab. They posted a podcast last week on cliques and the notion of popularity. At the end of the session, they felt they had more to say. Maybe that could be the topic. See: http://teentalk.bsge.org
Some of the guiding questions they had on the board (but did not actually fully explore) were:

What does it mean to be popular?
How far are you willing to go to be popular?

How about listening to their podcast (raw recording in garageband) and leaving a comment to get us started?
I like the idea of the kids sniffing each other out first.
I would suggest an open "popcorn" conversation (NOTE on popcorn conversation) rather than an interview, if that works for you.

I would shoot for a 10 to 15 minute show after our sniff fest.
We also communicate in a middle school elgg: Personal Learning Space(a walled garden) blogging environment. The teacher wiki that corresponds is Elgg Plans. If you send me a private email, I'll give you a login to look around. It is closed to non members. Only teachers can add their students (approximately 900 now). All of the teachers have contact with one another and we all look in on what the kids are writing to keep it tame.


Madeline

Permalink Reply by Ginger Lewman on May 19, 2007 at 12:23pm

YES! Popcorn not ping pong, most definitely! My kids are more familiar and comfortable with that format. I'm not sure why I used the word "interview."

Since you'll likely have just three 8th graders, I'll not have all my kids participate--there are 12 of us right now. Cliques are a favorite topic of theirs when they're thinking back to their regular schooling experiences.

It seems your collaboration experience is so much more rich than ours--we're in our inaugural year of our project-based learning charter school this year. We're truly excited to learn more from those blazing the path before us. We do have a website with a login password as well, but it's not been updated in awhile. :(

We'll be checking out your info (I'll email them this weekend as a heads-up) and would LOVE to connect on Tuesday. I'll email you with some private info to get that going!

Permalink Reply by kherron on May 20, 2007 at 12:32am

Madeline: I will be teaching in a charter school for 6-8 grade students next year and would be very interested in participatiing in your collaboration. I have not heard or used Skyp before and would like to know more about it. Could you direct me in the right direction and I would love to have our students collaborate next year.

Permalink Reply by Madeline (Slovenz) Brownstone on May 20, 2007 at 6:23am

Sounds good but. . . here's a little history of my podcast group. We formed this year as an afterschool activity. At first I got 7th and 8th graders to come out for it. It ended up to be a small group of 8th grade girls who stuck it out. I was green and so were the kids. We noodled around with the tools and techniques for quite some time before we were able to actually host shows that we were willing to put up on our website. (See: http://teentalk.bsge.org ) Now, facing next year is another story. Two years ago a group of dedicated 7th graders started and sustained a weekly underground newspaper. By the 8th grade, they were offered space and use of equipment to move their operation to the school building. Here's the rub. The girls that are in my podcast club are also involved in the newspaper. For next year, the same group will be in high school (ours is a 7-12 school) and the newspaper is moving to a monthly edition. They are thinking of filling in the other three weeks with podcasts of news--establishing a school communications bureau. So, the short part of the story is I don't think I will be doing the podcasts in the same way next year. But, who knows how it will really go.

As for your question about how to start using Skype, I bumped into a website yesterday: http://www.wtvi.com/TEKS/05_06_articles/skype-in-the-classroom.html
If you want to practice, maybe we can make some podcasts ourselves--teacher to teacher--to practice. We can take turns being the host and managing the recording of the conversation, editing and posting the results. That we can do over the summer so you will be ready to rock and roll in the Fall. Also, consider joining our elgg--the personal learning space--a walled garden for middle school bloggers. Let's form a group of teachers who want to collaborate over the summer.

Permalink Reply by kherron on May 20, 2007 at 7:42pm

I will be checking this out. This week I am going to finish my last week at where I am at, then take a few days with my family, then jump into all of this. I can't wait!!! I really like the idea of us playing with it first to not only learn it but to collaborate with it. Will be following up....