Episode 26: Cold Snap
In a bit of a departure from the usual format for the show, in this episode we play a recording of a Skype call between our three Year 5 classrooms at PLC Sydney and Anthony Powell, a communications technician at McMurdo base in Antarctica.
The Year 5 students were doing an integrated unit of work on Antarctica and we managed to arrange this call for the kids to have a chat to Anthony about life in Antarctica and to ask him a few questions. The three classrooms were connected to the call individually in a group conference call.
It’s a nice example of how Skype can be used to break through the walls of a traditional classroom and bring kids into contact with real people in faraway places. The next step will be that the students take this raw recording and chop it up to use in their own podcasts about Antarctica.
- Anthony’s website - http://www.antarcticimages.com/
PS, the Virtual Staffroom just turned two years old! Happy Birthday VSR!
October 30th, 2008 at 7:32 pm
Excellent- particularly the part where you told us how the link got established.
Kiwis are all over the globe!
Haven’t done a Skype conference call with an expert voice- will have to try that!
November 1st, 2008 at 12:57 am
[…] I went to have a look at Chris’ blog and I listen to his last podcast. A year 5 class was speaking to someone in Antarctica via Skype. It was some how incredible. But what interested the most in his post is that he used Google Earth to find someone in Antarctica with whom he could start a conversation. […]
November 5th, 2008 at 3:09 am
Awesome. I loved listening to the excitement from the kids as much as I enjoy listening to the passionate educators who appear on this cast.
Well done.
December 17th, 2008 at 12:05 pm
I would also like to find some experts to Skype with. I just got it installed.
I am going to use this audio for a staff development on how we could organize several teachers via Skype to communicate with Primary source or expert.
May 16th, 2009 at 1:34 am
What a fantastic initiative. You continue to inspire. It was particularly interesting to hear it all unfold in real time, rather than the “here’s one I prepared earlier” scenario. No posts for a while? I hope the Virtual Staffroom are go. I have just added it to a Conduit toolbar for our staff.