After attending and presenting at TeachMeet Kentucky I got more interested in the use of Skype by me and the teachers in my building. At TeachMeet Kentucky, two teachers demonstrated how they were using Turning Point in their classrooms to foster a competition between their two classes. I was immediately hooked on the idea and have taken it back to the teachers at the high schools that I work with. Below are 10 resources, articles, and links to various information regarding Skype in Education.
1.) Recently I came across to great resources for implementing Skype. The first is a great list of 50 Ways to Use Skype in the Classroom. The list is broken in to 5 different categories with links to more information or just providing an idea. This could be very useful for people like me who are interested in starting to use Skype in education.
2.) So the next question then becomes; well who would I use Skype with? Recently shared on Twitter, Skype for Educators is a Google Doc/Website that allows visitors to view educators interested in video conferencing and shares their expertise and contact information. This would be a great place to get discover fellow educators interested in collaborating. You can visit the Skype for Educators Form to provide your information as well.
3.) A similar directory is available through the comment section of a blog post on the Skype in the Classroom Blog. Also worth checking out and adding yourself.
4.) Skype an Author Network is a site dedicated to helping educators connect with authors using Skype. On the left hand side of the screen you will see a list of authors available to Skype with and provides directions for teachers and librarians to use the network.
5.) Politicians and Skype? Yes, they are interested. Here is an article about how politicians are encouraging its us as a form of connecting with constituents. It might be worth contacting your local representative and seeing if they will want to Skype into your government class. I figured this would be appropriate to include considering it is Election Day.
6.) People are always asking me just how handy Twitter and having a PLN is. Well, just today, while looking through the people I follow, one of them, EdTechSandyK shared three Skype resources that are perfect for this blog post. A great article with ideas and examples of Using Skype in the Classroom is a great read. She also Shared Tips for Using Skype in the Classroom which has some useful ideas. Finally, she shared 10 Ways to Use Skype in the Classroom which has some valuable ideas and some tools and other resources to use with Skype.
7.) A Great article from TechLearning by another member of my PLN Shelly Terrell provides links to resources for using Skype. Learning Beyond Walls: 21 Skype Resources is a valuable starting point for educators and contains many of the resources listed above.
8.) From Information Technology Schools another list, but this list focuses on Online classrooms. 10 Ways to Use Skype in the Online Classroom is for those teaching online through computers. This list is great for those in Higher Education, but with the increase in online learning for high school students and students on home-bound instruction, Skype would be a valuable tool for K-12 teachers as well to connect with those students.
9.) A Skype "Techtorial" is a PDF file that introduces people to Skype. The installation process and how to use the software. It is for older software, but the concepts are still virtually the same. This would be a good handout for teachers new to Skype and understanding what it is and how it works. There are also some valuable links within this handout.
10.) Skype for Teachers Introduction - YouTube Video
