Thing 15: Things Like Skype

As I'm not someone who even enjoys talking on the phone, I'm probably not the best person to discuss the benefits of Skyping.  I'd much rather just text or email, but I suppose there are those people (Mom, best friend, sister) who'd much rather hear my voice than read my texts.  So, I use Skype for that.  Tonight I Skyped with my mom.  She was able to show me the new lamp that she bought for my new house (yay!), so that was fun.  My best friend has also decided to accept a job in Afghanistan (!!!!!!!!), so I'll be Skyping with her.  I also Skyped with Lesley Ayers.  We discussed some work for our courses, and she was able to help me figure out how to schedule when my blog posts would be posted, as my "Things" have been out of order. 

As for how Skype might be used in my classroom-again, unfortunately it comes down to the issue of how I communicate with my students.  As I've mentioned before, for security and safety my school discourages communication with students through social media sites, and I think Skype might be off-limits too.  In "50 Awesome Ways to Use Skype in the Classroom" I read about the idea of using Skype to communicate with authors of books that students read, and I LOVE that idea.  I wonder if my librarian can help coordinate that and make it happen.  I also like that Skype allows "conference" or group chats.  I could encourage my students to set up a group call so that they could easily communicate about projects that they're doing together.  Ideally, I'd love to set up a group video call to groups of students to offer them tutorials before tests.