Exceptional Skype Video by Silvia Tolisano

I was just reading Wesley Fryer's blog Moving at the Speed of Creativity when I found his reference to Silvia Tolisano's amazing video, Around the World with Skype.

This 20-minute video is the ultimate instructional Skype video. It begins with introducing Skype and telling you how to get online. She then provides a format for connecting with other classrooms, authors, and experts from around the world. This was enlightening. She wasn't just providing rules, sharing her proven methods along with examples of connections that she and her students had made around the world. AND she has created it in both English and Spanish.

Silvia Tolisano has an international project, Around the World with 80 Schools. I must admit that I don't know much about this yet because I just signed up to join the wiki and learn more about the project. I will definitely blog about this later.

I was most impressed by the quality of the informative and instructional video. Ms. Tolisano appears to have used the digital storytelling process where she recorded the narrative first and then found visuals to accompany them. I especially liked what appeared to be original photos where she posed a wooden doll to illustrate a number of ideas that she was discussing.

I am quite pleased to have found Silvia Tolisano and look forward to following her projects.

What have you found to support using Skype in your classroom?

photo and video: Sylvia Tolisano

Telecollaboration: Connecting Classroom Across the Globe

I was just reading Scott McLeod's blog, Dangerously Irrelevant, where he is asking for resources in connecting classrooms around the globe. Telecollaboration is an important opportunity that enables students to talk and write with other students in other cultures. Sometimes it even involves monumental activities like when classrooms from around the world follow an explorer who is trekking to the north pole.

My favorite site for finding telecollaborative projects it the Global School Network. This organization in southern California has been sponsoring and connecting telecollaborative project around the world for over 2 decades. The originators, Yvonne Andres and Al Rogers were pioneers in the technologies that connected classrooms even in the 1980 (e.g., FrEdMail).

Tonight, I am fortunate enough to have Yvonne Andres skyping into my classroom (in Iowa) from San Diego. She will be sharing her visions and experiences with us.

I will also be announcing the beginning of a Telecollaborative project that my class will begin with another class in Poznan, Poland. This is the GLEX project. I will be sharing our GLEX project with you as time progresses.

Share Your Ideas

Dangerously Irrelevant is asking for sites and if you know of any, please add them to the list.

I am interested in whether or not you have been involved in a telecollaborative project yourself (or know of anyone who has done this.)

Here are some questions that you might want to use to help guide your response.

• Have you been involved in a telecollaborative project before?
• How did you find the other classes that were part of your project?
• Did you originate it?
• What did you do?
• What ideas do you have for a telecollaborative project (even if you have never done one.)
  

I look forward to your comments.

Z

Finding Skype Connections for Your Classroom

During my ISTE Webinar, Dr. Z’s Creative Cookbook for Collaborative Communication, I demonstrated how Skype can be used to bring experts and other students into the classroom. At that time, Wesley Fryer (Moving at the Speed of Creativity blog and podcast) asked if I knew of any directories that were available to find people who were interested in sharing some time with students through Skype. Unfortunately, at that time I didn’t know of any such directories and was unable to help him.

Since then, Angela Maiers used Twitter to share the Skype in Schools wiki she had just found. This directory was developed by Dan Froelich based upon requests from teachers who participated in one of his sessions at the NCETC 2008 Conference. It is designed to provide a place where you can offer your services, post a “want ad” to find other classes to engage in a telecollaborative project with you or for you to share your experiences in collaboration.

Wesley Fryer recently addressed the Skype directory issue in a posting to his blog, Moving at the Speed of Creativity. He explores Skype in Schools as well as ePals and the Center for Interactive Learning and Collaboration. You should read this posting.

Since Wesley brought it up, I have been thinking about how you could contact special people and classes to introduce to your students. I would like to make two recommendations to you about how you might make these contacts:

Conference Programs – Most of you who are reading this posting probably attend at least 1 conference a year. If you don’t, you should. I often pay for conferences out of my own pocket but I learn a great deal and make many contacts. Next time you go to a conference, come home with the business cards of at least 5 people with whom you could work on collaborative projects or have them Skype-visit your classroom. Another way that you can connect with folks from conferences, is to review conference programs and contact the presenters who look interesting:

• National Educational Computing Conference (NECC) 2008
• Florida Educational Technology Conference (FETC) 2008
• Iowa Technology and Education Connection (ITEC) 2008

You might specifically want to contact the people whose sessions were podcasted – this indicates that they are interested in talking about their program.

Podcasts: Speaking of podcasts, you should review the Conference Connections podcast seriesApple Computer) involves interviews with presenters at conferences. They may be technology leaders or classroom teachers or ?? This may be a short 7-minute interview or it might be a recording of the whole presentation. Either way, it is a way to find out who is interested in sharing their ideas. You may find some of them who asked to be paid for a Skype-visit, but you can find someone else if their terms don't meet your resources.

for possible Skype-visitors. This series (sponsored by Global School Network: If you are interested in collaborating with students and experts outside of your classroom, then you MUST visit the Global School Network (GSN). The GSN has been engaging teachers and students in project learning exchanges for a quarter of a century.
In 2005, Teaching and Learning magazine identified GSN's predecessor, FredMail Network, as one of the top 15 “Breakthrough Products” since 1980.

GSN provides a Project Registry of over 3,000 telecollaborative projects. These projects may be from across the street or across the globe. They may last a week or be continuous on-going activities. If you want to join an existing project, there are over 3,000 of them. If you want to originate your own project, GSN has developed a time-tested format outline to assist you in making your project successful. Telecollaboration is a deep subject that I will cover more thoroughly in a later post.

Wesley’s question about finding people and classes to work with your students is an important one. The opportunities are there and video conferencing can be used to make your curriculum more relevant to your students by further expanding their learning experiences into the “real world.”

What do you think? Do you use Skype in your classroom? How do you find people/classrooms for collaborating.