I have been using Skype for a long time. I recently dug up classroom examples to share with teachers and found videos dating back to 2010. This was a time where I had to duct tape Flip Cameras (remember these) to the desktops to record the screen and another camera to record my students so we could show parents and admin.
Fast forward 9 years to 2019 and I am blown away by how many free resources, guest speakers, virtual field trips, global projects, lesson plans, and more are available for any educator to take their students anywhere in the world.
I have lead tons of Going Global workshops where we discuss and display how a teacher can use Skype. The last few years we would sneak in a Mystery Skype so they could see how one works. As you all know, while a mystery Skype is amazing and so much fun, with limited time in PD and sessions we rarely get enough time to move into action.
While I always felt that my sessions exposed teachers to these opportunities I never felt they were good enough to motivate them to go back and use.
Why?
- Not enough time spent building confidence to understand that any educator can create these amazing opportunities for learning.
- Not diving deep enough to help them see how these connections do align with standards and content.
- Not diving deep enough to show them how to find the people, email the people, setup the event, etc.
- Never showcasing the real power of Skype In the Classroom
I have been working to reinvent my teaching and craft to eliminate these issues I feel the need to improve upon. Recently, I led some PD for a school district and provided the chance to showcase Skype in the Classroom. I mixed it up and challenged myself to rethink the whole delivery model.
- I used zero slides
- I let the experience do the talking instead of me blabbing on
- I created an online self paced learning playlist to help educators replicate what they experienced
- I made myself available for follow up 1 on 1 support and guidance
- I did not do mystery Skype and instead focused on virtual field trips and guest speakers
The result?
It ended up being the best session I have been part of so far. While we had very limited time of 25 minutes for each session, I believe I am on to something powerful. We began the session by giving them access to my website I created for the PD
I ran three sessions to give teachers choice and voice to experience what they needed to experience. As soon as they had the website, I explained the playlist and reinforced that I could come back and guide them step by step to get things going in their classroom. From there we jumped right into the action.
Depending on the session teachers could have three experiences as you can see on this page of the website
This is the beauty of learning. When we engage ourselves as students we connect the learning to emotion and excitement. The field trips themselves did all the work. I could not tell you how many smiles, oohs and ah’s, laughter, head nodding, and note taking was being done as teachers had time to experience learning and not just sitting being talked to in a lecture format! If we want to teach engagement, then we must engage! These three experiences were phenomenal as these guests were AMAZING!
If I had more time in a typical 45-60 minute session, then we would have debriefed our learning and then jumped to the site to find connections that fit our needs.
Going forward I will be sure to always do this as I have learned that if we want to help enhance education, we must enhance our PD. This does not require more slides, more talking, and more links. What it requires is meeting their needs, creating engagement, and helping them feel confident they can go back and do the work.
I am working to record as many virtual field trips as I can so educators will have a playlist of experiences they could watch to see if it is what they are looking for in their classroom. I believe the more exposure and opportunities we give educators to experience the learning the more likely they will be to enhance the learning in their classroom.
Pretty obvious? Yes, as this is what educators have been saying since the beginning of time!
Let’s go explore the world together!
Leave a Reply