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Kelsey Sheehy
Students from Brad Peach's ninth grade World Geography class in McKinney, Texas, gathered in their high school classroom on a Sunday night. On a screen in front of them, teenagers in Siberia dished to their Texan peers about life in eastern Russia.
Seeing the faces of students across the globe and learning about a culture firsthand brought his students to life, Peach says.
"They wanted to sit right in front [and] be right in the camera; they wanted to really interact," Peach notes. "This thing is drawing kids out who might be a little wallflowerish."
The students chatted about sports, school, and food using Skype, a Web-based phone and video service.
As
"One of the barriers that they continued to face ... was finding like-minded teachers, experts, and classrooms to collaborate with on mutually relevant topics, and on a global scale," Botterill says.
"We found out quickly it was working, that
The response was slightly slower for Scott Green, a teacher at
"If I find one person and have success, have a little failure -- even if it is for 30 or 40 minutes -- I think in all these situations the kids appreciate the effort," Green says.
For Green and Peach, figuring out the best way to use
To cope with this, Peach starts with a "handshake" call where students get to know the other class by chatting about food and sports. After introductions, Peach assigns his students roles -- such as record keeper or moderator -- to prepare for the next call, and he debriefs his students after each video chat.
"The debrief is when their little brains are just spinning," Peach says.
While the projects on
Francesca Fay teaches English at the NYCiSchool, a New York City charter school that blends technology and challenged-based modules to foster student innovation. This year she's coteaching an AP literature class with a teacher at
"I think as a teacher I push myself to come up with better ideas," Fay says. "It's not only about having another set of eyes, or another classroom, you're constantly reflecting on what you did."
That other set of eyes is also on the students, and working with a teacher on a screen was an adjustment, student Malia Medina says in a June interview with CBS New York.
"Just because she's not physically here doesn't mean that she isn't my teacher," Medina tells
As students talk to one another, and their teacher, over
Going forward,
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High School Students Learning by Skype