When a Substitute Teacher Knows Skype, Missing School is Easy (video)
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[Update: Correction about Chris: He's one of the few teachers that didn't need Skype training because he was already savvy that way. He's also produced some of the best laptop learning in the biology class he teaches. I hate when I under-credit people by accident!]
I’m taking a personal day today for wedding photos. I didn’t write a lesson plan for my sub, because I didn’t need to. My sub, Chris Baier, learned Skype in a professional development workshop we did last semester. I just called him, had him hook his MacBook up to the LCD projector, and did a video-conference with my students. It looked like this:
[quicktime]http://pod.kis.or.kr//blojsom_resources/meta/cburell/Chris%20Baier%20on%202008-02-27%20at%2008.05.mov[/quicktime]
Afterwards, I had one on one conferences with my students via Skype chat or, in one case where I needed to see the film editing monitor a student was using, another video-conference – he pointed the webcam to the monitor so I could help him troubleshoot, holding “my eyes in his hands” in a way sci-fi moment. It’s my networked learning class, so they’re all on Skype as a class group.
What are the take-aways from this? They’re countless: open school networks rock, subs with laptops and tech training rule, and I polluted less today by not driving to work – while still doing my work.
Just an interesting moment I thought I’d share. Never done that before.
And it suddenly occurs to me: ]I was part of my students’ “personal learning network” today instead of being their classroom teacher. Just a guy with a computer trying to help them learn.
I think I’ll skip school to teach from home more often.
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16 Responses to 'When a Substitute Teacher Knows Skype, Missing School is Easy (video)'
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Not to belittle last semester’s professional development workshop, but, well, some of us had actually figured Skype out a few years ago on our own.
I agree though, it is a great tool. Hope the wedding photos went well.
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chris
27 Feb 08 at 3:01 pm
@Chris: Ahh, and I stand corrected. You were always one of the tech savvy ones. There was some twitter talk that prompted the focus on the fact that it takes teachers comfy with the tools to be able to make things simple like this.
It was fun, by the way. Thanks for that.
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Clay Burell
27 Feb 08 at 5:40 pm
I am seriously tempted to get on a plane … this is so practical. Love it Clay!
Reply
Dean Groom
27 Feb 08 at 6:40 pm
This would be my dream teaching situation. I wonder if I will make it to this point in my career. I am 48. I want my two kids to have an experiences like this in a classroom, but I am afraid it will not happen.
Thanks for sharing
Bill
Bill Gaskins’s last blog post..Another Terrific Thought from the President Elect of NCTE
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Bill Gaskins
27 Feb 08 at 8:05 pm
Clay-
First, congratulattions on your impending wedding! Good luck!
Glad the lesson worked for your kids; skype is a great tool.
Questions though:
1. If you didn’t have to be in school…why did the kids? (Could they have stayed home too and had a similar experience?)
2. If #1 is true, more money saved on substitutes.
3. Since you took the day as a “personal day”, and you “worked”, should the day count as a personal day? If you were sick, would you still have “had class”?
I ask these questions only to illustrate the larger point I guess. In our schools, we have a pretty good 96% faculty daily attendance rate, but that still means that kids have subs in their classes between 4 and 10 times a year. (That’s potentially 5% of their school year). Since generally, a day with a substitute means movies, worksheets, or worse, is there a better way to deal with teacher absences where the students still have a valuable learning opportunity?
Barry
Barry’s last blog post..Making Your Own Sense of the World
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Barry
28 Feb 08 at 12:42 am
That was an awesome window into your classroom and the way you relate to your students. The video speaks more to your relationship with your students than to the technology… the technology is transparent!
Thanks for sharing this…
Rodd Lucier’s last blog post..Excessive Computer Use Harms Learning!?
Reply
Rodd Lucier
28 Feb 08 at 10:51 am
@Barry: As usual, I love the way your mind works (and note this numerical jag of yours is prime for another in your series of fine short films). My answers to your worksheet
:
1. You should know my feelings on daily forced schooling. When you factor in the time (and resources, financial and environmental) of transportation to and from school, and the opportunity cost of that to student learning time – for students at my school, probably two hours a day – mandatory school attendance in a physical building, when virtual teaching is as easy as this post tries to show, seems another scrap of industrial age schooling ready for the rust belt. I wonder if school days could be reduced to once or twice a week so that learning and other types of development could increase.
But in high school, the students had other classes with teachers that were there, so staying home wouldn’t work on my absent days for them. Elementary school, though? I guess if there’s a parent at home.
3. I love this question. Seems I should be paid, despite being at home, because I did chat with them for the whole class, giving as much one on one time – possibly more – than I do when in the room with them.
Depending on how sick I was, I may have skyped in anyway. But I often sleep through bad flus, so I don’t think that can be counted on.
@Dean, Bill, and Rodd: I don’t want to misrepresent my school as more than it is. Even though we adults see the power and potential, the majority of the students don’t. They’ve been in school too many years to know how to enjoy learning, and to allow themselves to be creative. Plus they think computers means Powerpoint, Word, gaming, and Facebook. To me, the only way this transformation of learning into creative pleasure is going to happen on a large scale is to implement it in the early years, and then train teachers not to squelch it in the later years.
Then there are other squelching pressures: college admissions, the SAT, and AP classes primarily. These inhibit parents, students, and administrators from the freedom to redefine learning as something other than passing tests and regurgitating information. I fantasize some sane philanthropist will pour money and power into campaigning for an end to the reign of the College Board and the SAT. But we know how likely that is.
But my relative freedom to experiment with new ways of learning at my school, with all its resources and administrative support? I guess that’s as ideal as it gets.
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Clay Burell
28 Feb 08 at 5:32 pm
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1 Mar 08 at 10:10 pm
What a fantastic and inspiring idea! I have never seen this kind of thing done before. My mind is going wild with the possibilities. Thanks for sharing.
Kara
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Kara Whittingham
4 Mar 08 at 8:24 am
I have been reading your blog with interest. As a teacher, the ideas are inspiring and as a parent of small children they are disturbing (because my children are in school).
Do you know of any on-line learning communities for children (especially primary-age children)?
As was commented here, if the children can reach the teacher via the net, why go to school at all? This is something that I have been thinking for a while. I suspect that many children are sent to school so that they can be supervised while their parents go out to work.
I love the idea of taking my children out of school and getting them involved with on-line learning communities, but is there such a thing for young children? Is there such a thing for high-school age children?
I know that distance learning is an option for children who don’t attend school, but that option imposes the same old stifling requirements on the child and what is expected of them that they get at school. I would rather pick and choose from various open-minded and creative-thinking on-line communities that my children could connect to via Skpe, forums, wikis, where they could share ideas with other children from all over the world and be challenged by teachers who are experts in their field, and in creative thinking. To your knowledge, do such communities exist?
Maybe I should try to start one?
Cheers,
Kara
Reply
Kara Whittingham
5 Mar 08 at 8:17 am
@KARA, I’m with you on the potential of home-schooling without the “schooly” approach of simply teaching mainstream curriculum at home.
There’s a movement called “unschooling” that I’ve written about frequently over the months. Do a search of this blog with that term and you’ll find some leads.
Also try a technorati search for “unschooling” and “home schooling.” I recommend Relaxed Homeskool, Life Without School, and Day by Day Discoveries as starters. They’re all blogs by unschoolers.
Also search “Mydlack” in my blog search bar to learn about the Fairhaven Sudbury School approach.
Good luck! Report back!
Clay Burell’s last blog post..Boundaries Blurring, Writing Getting Real at School
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Clay Burell
5 Mar 08 at 10:58 am
I too often use Skype and iChat for when I’m away from school. I’ve finally found a sub who feels comfortable running an entire school for me. The kids set her up with Skype, so now she and I can also have convos at any place/time.
In fact, with Skype, when the rest of the area schools have a snow day, my students automatically know to log on at 9am, where we meet in audio, I share a plan for the day and gather feedback for their ideas, then they have a few online lessons. I always give them a few “do at home projects” and by 1pm, we’re done with school. I have their completed products in hand so we’ll never have to deal with “make-up days!”
Online teaching is becoming more and more desirable at this time of year.
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GingerTPLC
10 Mar 08 at 2:19 am
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