Thinking About Learning

The father of one of our 2nd grade students is currently serving in the military in Afghanistan.  Our media specialist had the wonderful idea of trying to have him Skype with his daughter’s class on Veteran’s Day.  The plan was that he would read a book to the class via Skype.  His wife was coming and bringing their older son, and it was going to be a surprise for the students.  The day before the big event, all the technical details were tested, including the Skype connection.

Our global connection was to take place at 8:00 A.M., which was 4:30 P.M. in Afghanistan.  About 7:45 that morning, visitors began arriving in Ms. Hughes’s classroom.  We had reporters and video cameras from our 3 local news channels.  The students sat quietly engaged in independent reading as the adults sat watching the clock and the computer screen, eager for our contact’s button to turn green in the Skype window.  Minutes ticked by slowly, but the students were so well behaved!  About 8:25, our guest reader texted his wife that he was not able to make the Skype connection on his end.  We were very disappointed, but as educators, we know that “monitor and adjust” is the name of the game.  Ultimately we devised a “work around.”  His wife went over by the window (to improve phone reception), we held a microphone up to the phone, and he read the book to the class as Ms. Hughes held up the book and turned the pages.  There were other technology glitches in the process of devising the work around, but in the end, it was a very meaningful experience for both the students and all the adults in the room!  Here’s the news report from WLTX:

This entry was posted on Monday, November 16th, 2009 at 4:26 am and is filed under Classroom Reflections, Social Media, Web 2.0. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.