Skype is setting itself to become a center of all attention as it comes to the classroom. The idea is to connect teachers beyond classrooms with its online directory. Again this isn’t about teachers only, but rather bringing a global experience to students as well.
Skype in classroom works quite simply, teachers create profiles on Skype, mentioning their interests and expertise as well as locations. The result? An online community of experts who can communicate instantly with each other and bring the experience of their classrooms to those at other locations. For example a teacher can define their classes and teaching specialties and thus create a network that can be utilized by others to get in touch with experts or share educational resources.
The idea isn’t new and has been in beta since December last year and already over 5,000 teachers have signed up sharing over 300 resources. It has over 100 projects all the way from China to Mexico. The site itself showcases projects with helpful filtering options to narrow down the searches. Students or teachers can perform searches as per age groups, languages as well as subjects. As mentioned already, the projects are also placed on the main page that describe each one of them as well as mentioning the requirements.
I have been quite vocal about the concept of a more social experience when it comes to activity online. The Internet has simplified the issues with collaborating across borders. One doesn’t have to go back a century to see the difference. Only a decade back it was still an alien idea to consider the Internet as being the best collaboration tool, but with advent of services like Facebook, Twitter, Skype, etc it has become exceptionally easy.
The next time you think going to a new country is the only solution to get close with newer teaching methods or cultures, you only need to signup for Skype.
