Skype

My first experience with Skype was about a year ago, and it was simultaneously exhilarating and depressing.  My dad was using his webcam to talk with one of my cousins and her husband in Belgium, who had just had their first child.  

It was exciting, because I was talking with a cousin, face to face, that I hadn't seen for 4 years.  In fact, since my family moved to the States when I was a toddler, that's been the norm: we could only afford to visit Belgium every four or five years, which meant years would pass before we'd see each other's faces.  But now most of the family has Skype accounts, webcams, and high speed internet.  And here I was, speaking Flenglish (one of those crazy half-n-half hybrid languages, like Spanglish) with Sophie and Charly, and I was looking at their beautiful newborn son.

At the same time, however, I was acutely aware of the fact that this was a brand new technology that my dad had adopted before I had.  Now don't get me wrong.  My dad is brilliant, but this is also the same man who cannot for the life of him use any hand tool for its intended purpose, and who believes most objects can--and should--be fixed with duct tape and bent coat hangers.  Trust me, it stung...

The other day, I was having trouble posting to the Willamette Ed Tech blog.  I also happened to be logged into Skype.  Barry Jahn rang me up and asked how things were going.  After I explained my troubles in an instant message (my work laptop doesn't have a webcam), we tried a few things, and quickly solved the problem.  Score one for Skype!

In an educational setting, Skype can have a lot of uses.  I imagine that I will primarily use it to get the students to connect with people outside of the state, preferably out of the country.  In the afternoons, I could also leave Skype up and running, so students could contact me for help with their homework.  The simple idea of making our world smaller through the use of various communication technologies would go a long way to get kids prepared for the realities of today, while simultaneously preparing them for even greater capabilities in the future.