Skype

Today, higher education is experimenting with all types of technological resources from Internet to quizdom clickers and from computers to Infrared Radiation Spectroscopy machines. These programs, machines, and pieces of equipment have proven beneficial in higher education allowing students to learn and explore in new ways. Perhaps then, Skype will be implemented in higher education too as a classroom tool someday. Just imagine the changes Skype could make in a communications course, second life or distance learning, or simply everyday learning in a classroom for students who would like to attend a lecture but are absent. Can you imagine a class room where all students' seats are replaced by computer screens facing a blackboard where the teacher is present? or even more abstract- the teacher is also teaching her arrangement of student faces on screens from a a laptop screen.

Skype is a unique tool that has great potential yet to be explored; it has numerous benefits with some drawbacks that make it a technological resource worth utilizing in education. Skype could reduce costs of meeting in a "school" building. Imagine that if all students needed to do in order to go to class was call a classroom laptop, the need to have a large heated/air conditioned room wouldn't be necessary. The teacher would also be teaching from a laptop at the front of the room and could remain in his/her home and still receive questions and see her students faces keeping personal contact. The drawback from using Skype for this imaginative and creative new way to learn however is that It would be much more difficult for students to interact well with each other unless other technology was implemented to allow students to view the teacher and other laptop students. This idea of distance learning also presents problems with the effectiveness of student learning since it would be near impossible to give an exam via this method when students are linked to the internet through their computers at a location outside of the classroom.