SKYPE® for School

by Barrie Jo Price

By now most educators seem to be aware of SKYPE® (rhymes with type), a tool teachers and students discovered almost as soon as it hit the market in 2003 because it has some of the characteristics that tech-savvy teachers and almost all students enjoy: it’s easy, it’s free, and it connects family and friends. SKYPE®, begun by software developers/entrepreneurs in Sweden, allows users to make telephone calls over the Internet to other SKYPE® users free of charge and to landlines and cell phones for a fee. This is an example of Voice-over Internet Protocol (VoIP).

How popular is this? “...100 billion minutes of Skype-to-Skype calls. These are all free calls connecting people via Skype over the last five years” (Broadbandreports.com, 2008). Europeans have been using SKYPE® for some time, and those in the Americas are now catch up quickly (Shaw, 2008). And a good deal of this popularity, no matter the continent, is the cost or lack of it for computer-to-computer calls (Havie, 2008).

Teachers immediately discovered how to connect with family and friends for free, computer-to-computer. It is also being used by organizations such as universities and schools. Here are some examples of the articles about such use:

• Branzburg, J. (2007). Talk is cheap: Skype can make VoIP a very real communication option for your school. Technology & Learning, v27 n8 p36 Mar 2007
• Woo, S. (2006). Professors and students ask colleges not to hang up on Skype. Chronicle of Higher Education, v53 n16 pA28 Dec 2006

But, now, teachers are beginning to explore how SKYPE might be used with students in K-12 settings, too. There are some specific applications for SKYPE® that educators should consider. Here are some examples.

Interviews
Teachers (and their classes) can interview an author, a scientist, an artist, a parent, another child…the list goes on and on…as part of an instructional lesson in much the same way they might invite these people into their classrooms. In essence they can use SKYPE® as a computer-mediated communication tool to ‘invite’ the guest. Why use SKYPE® instead of using the phone? Aside from the fact that it is free, there are some other reasons. For one thing, within SKYPE® teachers have a chat option as a companion feature. While talking to the guest, both parties can type information on the chat feature, if there are addresses, formulas, website, names, etc. to be shared. And teachers can save the chat as a file, so they can open it later to get the information or have minutes from the guest speaker. No need to scribble notes.

This application assumes that SKYPE is available at school, which may or may not be the case. It does require a lot of bandwidth, which results in some schools banning its use at school. Teachers have overcome this obstacle by asking the IT personnel to set up one SKYPE station, at least on a temporary basis. This enables ‘speakers’ if scheduled in advance. 

Group Assignments
Some teachers assign students to work on group projects, but this may require the teachers to provide opportunities within the class period for the groups to meet. However, if all the students have SKYPE at home, they can be taught to ‘meet’ using SKYPE, thus doing their group work and having group meetings as outside assignments. Each student sits in his/her own home, joins a SKYPE meeting of up to 5 people. The team leader ‘convenes’ the group on SKYPE; that person or someone else can even take notes on the chat feature. These chat notes can be saved as a textfile to document the meeting. The team leader can turn in the chat notes as evidence of who participated and for how long as well as documenting the general meeting events. 

Also under MORE, on the top menu in SKYPE, there’s a important option called Pamela. Using this tool, it is possible to actually record up to 15 minutes of a SKYPE® phone call or ‘meeting’. Pamela is free and offered from within SKYPE®; if you choose to get the fee-based Pamela, there is not a limit on the recording. The team leader could actually save, for example, the summary portion of the phone conference of all 5 participants. Finally, the addition of an ‘eye-ball’ camera or other camera device, will allow SKYPE® participants to see each other. Depending on the type of camera, it may be possible to actually record the video or stills from the camera. 

By using SKYPE as an outside assignment tool, teachers accomplish two things: 1) they teach students ways to use equipment they already possess for productive, instructionally relevant applications and 2) they gain additional interaction and work time for student work groups. Perhaps one of the main things accomplished is that students become comfortable with computer-mediated communications and collaboration.

Summary
Teachers and students are using SKYPE® to connect to their families and friends. A quick remedial read, Using SKYPE at School, will provide a handful of ways SKYPE® is being used in classrooms (Dummies.com). There is a module on SKYPE for those interested in using it: http://www.emTech.net/warehouse/skype.

RELATED SITES:

Skype at School http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/using-skype-at-school.html
Why I Skype: http://murcha.wordpress.com/2008/12/06/using-skype-in-education/
See Me, Hear Me: Skype in the Classroom:
http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/article/CA6515247.html

REFERENCES:
Enbysk, M. (n.d.) Virtual meetings cut travel costs. Microsoft Small Business Center.
Retrieved 25 Feb 2008 from http://www.microsoft.com/smallbusiness/resources/finance/business-travel/virtual-meetings-cut-travel-costs.aspx

Havie, W. (Feb 25 2008). Skype 101. Stuff.co.nz Retrieved 25 Feb 2008 from
http://www.stuff.co.nz/thepress/4413457a11275.html

KatherineV. (Feb 24 2008). Skype sees surge in activity. Broadbandreport.com.
Retrieved 24 Feb 2008 from http://www.broadbandreports.com/shownews/Skype-Sees-Surge-in-Activity-92125.

Shaw, R. (Feb 20 2008). Skype call trend lines are changing. ZD Net. Retrieved 24 Feb
2008 from http://blogs.zdnet.com/ip-telephony/?p=3275

SKYPE® http://www.skype.com

Single, P. and Muller, C. (2001) When email and mentoring unite: The implementation of
a nationwide electronic mentoring program. ERIC: Report - ED472832

Dummies.com (n.d.) Using SKYPE at school. Retrieved 18 Feb from
http://www.dummies.com/WileyCDA/DummiesArticle/id-4420.html

-------------------------

AUTHOR:

Barrie Jo Price, Ed.D.
Professor, College Human Environmental Sciences, The University of Alabama, Institute for Interactive Technologyy
Partner, emTech Consulting, www.emTech.net
bjprice@emTech.net SKYPE: barrie.jo.price

- back to top -