The Power of Skype

This year, I decided to sign up to Skype in the classroom just to see what could be achieved by technology. As Twitter will testify, technology wins!

#skypeclassroom

Brazil

International Week came around early in October. Year 6, were assigned Brazil and within a few days I had linked up with a school in Brasilia. The children were shocked, intrigued and wanted to ask as many questions as possible. They particularly like the basketball style vest uniform. This half an hour, made International Week.

Mystery Skype 

I had the bug now,so we looked at Mystery Skype. A game where you answer yes or no questions to pinpoint the other school's location. There are several good blogs on mystery Skype etiquette and class planning, 

 

http://theglobalconnection.wikispaces.com/Mystery+Skype+-+What+is+it%3F

being one of the best.
We connected with @mstoalsclass in Dublin and a school in Vancouver. The latter taking 90 minutes to crack! This tested geography skills, collaboration, questioning and distilling of information- great for the More Able.
Follow #mysteryskype

Authors

I then explored the Skype in the classroom site further. There are a huge amount of lessons for you to sign up to. Keen to inspire a range of writers i my class, I found National Geographic writer @jodi_kendall
She gave the children a great insight into her career and how she combined it with photography. Her tales of manta rays and orangutans had us all hooked.
The children then wrote stories of journeys they'd taken and were really keen to post on her blog to say thank you.

http://www.jodikendall.com

Next, I found another author @mattwardwords who wrote the excellent Fantastic Family Whipple

http://fantasticfamilywhipple.com

The children loved learning about California, his writing journey and his ideas. The book itself was about a family of record breakers, the next day the classroom was awash with Guinness World Record books. All children wanted to write about obscure records, some had even written a story at home! Unheard of behaviour. 

Story Tellers

World Book Day arrived, a great group of people based in Florida known as the Sunshine Storytellers offered to read us a story. We had a 3-way Skype call with another school in New Jersey, amazing. How they all laughed when they heard how cold the UK was.

Topic Work

Using Skype this term, we have connected with two schools in North-eastern India and have learnt lots about their areas, language and how their school operates. The Indian national anthem sung in Hindi was a highlight. Importantly, my children could learn about expectations, attitudes and tolerance, things that are difficult to teach in the classroom.

               My class

The view in India


Skype Thoughts

For some Skype calls it can take a few days or weeks, so allow enough time.

A lot of the other schools we Skyped had small groups ranging from 10 to 20, for fairness, most of my calls were with all 60 year 6 children. It works much better with a small group, more jobs and greater involvement.

Practise getting the children to present and speak clearly.

Get a microphone!

Check the broadband connection, some of our calls have been a tad slow which can quickly frustrate 10 year olds.

Make sure you it is clear what your call focus is, it can become slightly one way at times.

The Skype safeguarding is excellent.

Time difference can lead to some early or late calls but they're worth it.

Skype Ideas

We need more British schools online so connections can be more regular without interfering with the school day.

Authors, poets; where are you? 30 minutes during a poetry week would really add another dimension to a schools work without costing a fortune.

Museums and galleries would be another excellent addition, particularly for schools who are unable to visit some of our national collections in London.

Guided Reading/Book clubs with other classes

Sharing writing on a similar topic

Performances- poetry, dance, class presentations on a topic 

Maths challenges-particularly open ended problems

Olympic style sports challenges

Mystery Number - similar to mystery Skype but with guess the number type questions. Eg. Is it an odd number?

Interviews with each other

Hotseating of a character

Sharing learning

Tour of your school

 

I'd love to hear any more ideas and it would be even better to connect with you.

@mistercollard

Coding the Taj Mahal

Coding; I thought we ought to get this ball rolling. I knew some of my boys had attended Code Club, some couldn't spell coding and some were handy on an ipad so @Hopscotch was the obvious answer. Our topic was India so our goal was a Taj Mahal in code. Here's how it went:

1) Human Coding - In pairs the children had to guide their 'robot' partner around the playground with some chalk. This got them into the idea of an algorithm and also showed how comfortable they were with the mathematical language needed.

2) Hopscotch - I introduced the children to hopscotch and showed them a few basic functions and have them the target to create a square. Those that were quick were then challenged to create more complex 2D shapes or experiment with colour, size etc.

3) Circles - The next challenge was to draw a circle. The children experimented with many different ways of programming a circle and using the repeat functions.

4) Taj Mahal - We looked at some outline drawings of the Taj Mahal and discussed the shapes that were used in the construction of building. The children, now armed with programmer skills, began to code, some drew a basic shape, some created backgrounds and some added a title.

The most encouraging part of the whole experience was the speed in which some children went home and downloaded Hopscotch. On Monday, I was greeted by a host of iPads brought in just to show me how much better their work was. 

Coding; everyone is talking about it!