Skype: Connecting Classrooms Across the World

I remember in elementary school, we have pen pals in our class that we could practice writing letters to and then "mail" the letters and recieve a response. This project was supposed to help us learn to communicate and be able to ask questions of our friends. When I began my undergrad for teaching, we had our students use skype to connect with their peers in other schools within the state of Maine. It was amazing to me to see how far "pen pals" could go! Skype has made it easy to connect students and teachers across the nation increasing the amount of resources we have access to. I think it would be exciting to have my students have peer pen pals across the world that they could talk with and relate to. This would help with their global awareness that has become the topic of many employers hiring the new work force. Teaching the students in school how to effectively use Skype would help them when they enter the job market by proving them with the tools to hold conference calls and interact through a screen with their collegues of potential clients. I know I use Skype in my personal life to talk with my parents (who live out of the country) and my friends and family in the North East. Allowing students to connect with others utilizing the technology we have could only benefit our students right? Although I could not see any negative reasons to not use Skype in the classroom, there are skeptics who are concerned about introducing the students to technology that could allow them to connect with the wrong people. I think if we teach our students how to use the tool correctly they will know how to handle situations that may arise. Not only would Skype be able to connect students to students and teachers to students, it could also be used as part of a lesson. I read an article about using Skype to bring the Authors of chidlrens books to the classrooms (Condron, 2011)! This was an amazing idea to me. Think about all the influential people our students could be exposed to with the simple use of a computer. The students would be able to formulate questions and ask the speaker in an environment where they may feel less intimated because the person is not right in from of them per say. Another suggestion they make is about having parent/teacher conferences via Skype (Condron, 2011). This could allow parents to not leave work and still have the face to face interaction with the teacher that a phone conference does not allow them to have. Below is a video using Skype to have an author talk with students! This is just another way we can use technology to better educate our students!

Artell, M. (2009, 3 19). Youtube. Retrieved 9 23, 2011, from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cI6jhq8kty0

Condron, A. (2011). News, Recommendations and Resources. Retrieved 9 23, 2011, from Teach Hub: http://www.teachhub.com/using-skype-classroom

Reading Intervention Programs that incorporate Technology: Better Results?

We as teachers have many different technologies available to us for use in the classroom. Many can be used for whole group discussion but I have come in contact with some that work specifically for one on one intervention. The reading program my school uses is called Waterford. I wanted to research to see what the benefits of this program and if there were other programs out there that accomplish the same goal and what the benefits are for the students. The specific Waterford program my district uses for intervention is the Waterford Early Reading Program. This program has resources for one on one lessons as well as whole group activities. The WER program uses research based practices to create lessons based upon the students needs. There are four areas that make up the reading program: Phonics, Comprehension and Vocabulary, Language Concepts, and Phonological Awareness (Institute) and these four areas are broken down into three different levels of difficulty depending on the pre-screening of each child. When my students first log into the program, they are put through a skills assessment to determine their strengths and weakness in the four areas of reading. Once they have completed the pre-assessment, the WER creates a program that caters to each child's needs. My students are extremely engaged in these lessons and ask frequently to go on the computer and play the "games"! The lessons are taught through songs and games that work on each skill the child needs assistance with. Something I find really interesting about this website is that it will adjust based upon the students current level of performance. If the child is making less progress, it will incorporate more lessons to develop those skills. The goal of the WER program is to enhance the classroom teachings of the students (Institute). I use the lessons whole group as well as for interventions and my students thoroughly enjoy the nursery rhymes, games, and songs! I like to incorporate the interactive games on my starboard for the whole class to be involved in the lessons. Having used this program and seeing a lot of progress in my students, I wanted to see if there was another program that worked the same way or if it was different, did it have better results. The WER program has research that supports the success of the program and when I used the program, my students went from non-readers to reading about grade level! I was surprised by the success of my students but by talking to other teachers, I found they have similar results with their students. I found a program through Pearson that is tiered in three levels the same way as the Waterford program. It also targets writing, phonics, reading fluency, and reading comprehension as well as monitors the students’ progress (Pearson, 2011). The major difference between the two programs is the use of technology for delivering the intervention. The PAL program from Pearson is a pencil and paper workbook that works on the necessary skills whereas the Waterford program is completely delivered online. The PAL program provides a response to Teaching First legislation for NCLB. I am happy to see many different intervention programs for students but I really feel that with the technology driven generation that is entering our classrooms now we need to find ways to engage them in lessons they can be stimulated by. The Waterford program really generates lessons that the students can understand and will cater to their level of literacy development every time they log-in.

Bibliography

Institute, T. W. (n.d.). Waterford Early Learning. Retrieved September 16, 2011, from The Waterford Institute: www.waterford.org/products.early-learning/learning-approach

Pearson. (2011). Pearson. Retrieved September 16, 2011, from www.pearsonassessments.com/HAIWEB/Cultures/en-us/Productdetail.htm?Pid=015-8661-044