Skype

Over the years, I had some great opportunities to travel, tour, and experience the world. As I posted previously, I will be headed to Turkey for an amazing experience touring the metropolis of Istanbul and the rural countryside of Turkey (that I am told will greatly resemble the South Dakota countryside). This time I board the plane to travel will be very different than I have ever experienced previously, because I will be waving good-bye to two very extraordinary influences in my life, my husband and daughter. It is only a short trip, and I cannot wait to be able to take fantastic trips like this with my family, but, until then, I have Skype.

This service will be able to connect me with my daughter and hubby while I am gone. Though if I wanted to call a cell phone or house phone I would need to purchase ‘Skype Credit’, if we are both at the computer, we can Skype for free! Now that I actually sat down and figured it out, I Skyped by friend Becky who attends graduate school in Swansea, Wales last night. We talked for about an hour– actually looking at each other! It was a great way to check out this service and my daughter sat on my lap for most of the conversation.

After looking into this I began thinking about how I could use Skype in my classroom…
Flat Classroom Skype, originally uploaded by superkimbo in BKK.

Here is a photo of some students in a Fifth grade classroom that I found on flickr. There is not a long story that accompanies the photo, but it does say that they are Skyping with students in Australia.

The implications for this in the classroom setting could be shattering! No longer do we have to assume what students from another school, state, or even country think– we could connect via Skype for a discussion! Imagine if I connect with a classroom in Turkey, and barring difficulties with time differences, we connect and discuss our opinions of the literary classic Beowulf. We could open our classroom up to the opinions of the world. This could also be particularily useful when analyzing bias in the media or during an election.

The possibilities are endless, but for now I will just work on being able to listen to my daughter laugh while I’m on the other side of the world.

Promethean Board Training

L and the dinosaur, originally uploaded by thennif.

This morning I arrived back at Deuel to try my hand at learning about Promethean Boards. There are currently Promethean Boards in every pre-k through middle school classroom at Clear Lake Elementary and three teachers in the high school have boards. Next year, two more teachers in the high school will have the boards. I am not one of these teachers, but I want to be able to be able to understand how to work with these boards nonetheless.

Three phenomenal elementary teachers (Lisa Brandt, Bonnie TeKrony, and Sheila Heilberger) at Deuel have created a great workshop to teach the basics about Promethean Boards.  If you are interested, it is not just open to Deuel School Faculty– it is available to everybody! There are going to be multiple sessions during the summer. Check it out on the South Dakota Teachers Professional Development Calendar.

I was not able to attend the session yesterday, but the ladies caught me up quickly.  We have reviewed the basics about the hide and show features, using the resource library to create interactive flipcharts, creating containers for word sorts, and even revealing hidden grids.  The interactive board will be a very effective in the classrooms with young children and both visual and kinesthic learners.