Technology is progressing in practically every facet of our lives. It is no surprise that technology is being integrated in the classroom. One of the latest tools that is being used more frequently in the classroom is Skype. Skype is a tremendously popular and successful online video chat service. This tool can be used to link a virtual guest lecturer with a class of students. The lecturer could be anyone knowledgeable in an area pertaining to a particular class lesson. The students can ask the lecturer questions directly; this process of interacting with the lecturer would be a fresh experience and might be more appealing (not “interesting”) to students than a teacher presenting a traditional lecture. The students will be more exposed to new ideas because this lecturer has a different perspective, or is perhaps more experienced in an area, than the actual teacher.
There are some prerequisites and problems related to using Skype in the classroom. To start, a teacher would need to have a Skype account and know the basics of how to use Skype. Secondly, a class would need a projector or similar piece of technology that would make the skype video chat on the teacher’s computer available for everyone in a class to see. Moreover, with any piece of technology comes the possibility of a technological problem. A Skype video call could unexpectedly end, and valuable time could be wasted trying to retrieve a signal.
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ReplyDeleteI also mentioned in my post that it would be easier to get guest lecturers to speak for a class. I was thinking, though, how would guest lecturers feel about this? I'm sure it would depend by person, but I imagine that people who are delivering guest lectures are usually pretty important people. Would their demands for these rack up and instead of giving more lectures, they would refuse to give any? I like to think that this would be a great benefit of using Skype in the classroom, but I don't think we should be taking advantage of professionals in lecture too much either.
ReplyDeleteAlthough your idea poses benefits, Skype currently lacks the quality necessary to make this plausible. From my experience, Skype calls, especially video calls, are not the greatest quality; voices often break up and the video often freezes. This would be an inefficient waste of time, and could irritate and distract both the guest speaker and the students. Furthermore, for the students to interact with the speaker, they wold have to individually get up and position themselves in front of the computer's web cam. This also would be inefficient and hectic if multiple students were eager to interact. You do not have a bad idea, but I believe that Skype currently lacks the software quality necessary to be efficient in this type of scenario.
ReplyDeleteI agree with David. At the present, I don't know if Skype is really advanced enough to handle all of the needs for the creative ideas we all have come up with for classroom situations. If Skype continues to progress in quality and speed then I do believe these classroom implementations could work. Perhaps with google fiber, cities will have dast enough internet connections to eliminate some of the connection quality issues and Skype will be able to improve certain aspects of their program.
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