Skype in the Classroom - Teaching From Afar

Recently, I attended the BLC 12 conference in Boston. If you have any interest in 21st century education or technology in the classroom, I would recommend that you attend. One of the sessions I attended while I was there was a session on Blogging for Your Students given by Sylvia Tolisano. You can follow her on twitter @langwitches. While sitting in her session, it gave me the inspiration to write a blog post that I meant to put on here before the end of the school year. Unfortunately, towards the end of the school year, I had a lot on my plate. I had taken some time off of work to help with my father because my father was very ill. Needless to say life was rather busy after returning back to work with wrapping up the end of the school year and being in charge of printing report cards for the school, but after sitting in Sylvia's session, I realized that I had this great idea that I should share with other teachers.

As I stated earlier, I am the teacher responsible for printing report cards for the entire school. Before you start thinking that this a a huge task for a teacher, please know that I work in a one track school meaning we have only one grade per class. However, the first and last time printing report cards for the year does require a larger amount of time. This means that usually the first and last time we get ready to print report cards, my class will have a substitute. My classes are usually pros when it comes to having a substitute because I teach the students how to run the class. In fact, this past year, they told one of the substitutes that she was not doing something correctly and took over the lesson. The substitute said she was amazed at how little she had to do because the children did everything. So, while I do not worry about the children's behavior for a sub, I do feel that I miss out in hearing some of their discussions on different lessons that are taught in the classroom while I'm out.

At the end of the year, I gave my class a choice of two books to read for the last novel of fourth grade. The students in the class chose to read On My Honor, despite my many warnings of this being a very sad book, this is the book they chose. While many will find this a depressing book, it opens up a lot of classroom discussions: lying, making right and wrong choices, peer pressure, etc. So of course, having to work on report cards, I was a little discouraged that I would not be in the classroom to listen to the discussions that needed to take place while reading this book. Then I realized with all the technology out there, even though I'm not in the classroom, I could still take part and listen. 

The morning of having to work on report cards, I went to school early, so I could install Skype on the iPads. I put one child in charge of running Skype throughout the day and inside the office I sat with my iPad next to me and a pair of headphones to hear the students. Since there are a number of people who come in the office, I was thankful for the mute button that Skype offers. I instantly fell in love with Skype, not that I didn't love it already, but I loved that it offered me a chance to be a part of my class when I wasn't in the classroom. It gave me a chance to hear the students discussions, to ask them questions, and it also gave them a chance to ask me questions when needed.