Many teachers are already using Skype to reach students who are at a different location or to offer a special experience to their class (for example; by collaborating with other classes abroad or by having guest speakers that can`t travel to the school).
What Skype now offers are not new functionalities or a new communication interface but rather a network. Many groups and companies have tried more or less successfuly to build this kind of network before. Can you name them? ... so that`s the problem; not that many teachers know about them and, therefore, do not reach the collaborative potential that the Internet offers.
Because Skype is already known by virtually everyone and many teachers are already using it, I think it will be successful in connecting an unprecedented amount of educators and ressources.
I believe it came out of beta earlier this week and there are already almost 6000 teachers that registered so far. I`m sure that this number will keep going up quickly.
I have only spent a few minutes browsing the network but I see tremendous potential in the tool. You can search for collaborators by region or country, by field of interests (language, science, culture...), by student`s age, by projects...
That`s the real power of this tool; you can find what you are looking for quickly and you are not limited to only a couple of options.
Of course, the best way to know what it`s all about is to try it for yourself. I think you might find incredible ideas and very motivating projects on that network.
http://education.skype.com/
If you want to find me there, I`m "JD".
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