Skype

In my investigations of Skype I was able to contact my best friend who lives in London, viewing her son face to face, and reading him stories for his bedtime, all while I am still waking up. I was able to show her around my renovations, which could not have happened on a normal telephone. The idea that students could contact another person on the other side of the world, and access information from experts 24 hours a day made me realise the power of this tool in developing students’ understandings of time, day and night around the world, and even seasons. Being able to actually view the differences in daytime and seasons and relate these to geographical locations of speakers make knowledge more meaningful for the students.

Plus:

·     Contact experts - go straight to source of information

·   Affordability (Free skype-to-skype calls)

·      Information gained through both visual and audio

·      Can ‘share screens’ to see what the other person is working on (good for tech help)

·      Accessibility (just need a computer, or even a phone)

·      Face to face contact with peers

Minus:

·      Have to arrange when to call

·      Bad connections (some calls cut out / images and audio are bad quality)

Interesting:

·      Offers the option to conference call between multiple people