Skype (sounds like an 80's hair band) or one of the other internet conference calling hosts is going to be a stand in for video conferencing for me. My students and I participated in a statewide video conference called Texas History Mystery and enjoyed the whole experience from researching our topic to deciding on the methods of delivering our ideas about our topic and then rehearsing for the conference. Our greatest learning came from our reflections on the whole process and deciding ways to make it better. So, I look forward to doing a lot more of this type of learning experience in my classroom. Video conferencing with services like Skype could be used for cross-classroom reader's theatre, book clubs, author sharing, book reviews... so many more uses come to mind.
The
thing that interested me the most on this thing's links are the screen sharing applications:
TalkandWrite and Teamviewer. As a 4th grade writing teacher, I know that good writers need good creative partners to help them through the writing process. This would be a great tool to go beyond the walls of the classroom and partner with kids in other classrooms. With such different types of learners in each classroom, this is one way to connect kids with like interests.
When I work more with each of these applications, I will get a clearer picture on which works best for my classroom purposes. Obviously the most user friendly would be the best.
The link below is another point of view on these types of applications.
http://www.404techsupport.com/2008/09/05/free-online-collaboration-and-screen-sharing-systems/
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