Skype is a communication tool that allows real time video chat across the internet. In this day and age, it has become an innovative tool relating to internet communication. Especially if we consider its educational possibilities, it could be a very useful tool in the classroom. For example, if a professor was required to go overseas and was unable to attend lecture or offer advice, skype would be able to connect the professor to the classroom. Considering lecture is an integral part of learning material in the classroom, and with a projector, a teacher could use skype to communicate with the class and give lecture. This differ from a recorded lecture video because then the professor would be able to answer questions about things that are unclear.
Yet there would also be detriments among the communication benefit of having skype in the classroom. For instance, having skype on a computer offers a distraction, for it is also a chatting program. It would cause students to become easily distracted and chatting during class. Also, there are limited interaction between skyping computers, if physical instruction is needed, then there is no way that the professor or other interacting entity can aid them.
Jason, I completely agree with you. I think how you explain technology is used in classroom is a great example.Skype is definitely a great tool and can be used to benefit millions of peoples, but everything has somort of flaw. However, at the same time, you demonstrate these flaws sufficiently in your post to show that it's not always positive.
ReplyDeleteI really like your idea of connecting professors to the classroom when they are overseas. Like you said in your post, using Skype in the classroom may cause distraction, but I think the benefits of using Skype overweigh the limitations. It would be interesting to see more and more schools incorporating Skype into their classrooms.
ReplyDelete