Guest Speaker via Skype

by derrickwillard on April 5, 2010 at 2:31 pm · Filed under skype, social media and tagged: skype, social media

One way to remove the walls that can isolate your classroom from the “real world” is to use the free video phone application, Skype.  Surely you have made a Skype call to friends or family, but have you used it to invite a guest into your classroom?  Last year, I invited two speakers into my non-AP environmental science classroom.  The first speaker was a wildlife biologist working with the North Carolina Department of Transportation.  He explained some current projects he was doing with endangered species.  The second speaker was a recent Providence Day School alum, who was spending a “gap year” in China teaching English.

While not an expert on air pollution, the alum was able to share his personal observations (and photos) of the air pollution in that part of China (see below).  My students got to ask questions of someone they knew and also to SEE conditions were reading about in our environmental science text.  It was easy and FREE.

So…who would you invite into your classroom today if you could?

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