Doing IT Differently

Some tips and tricks we’ve picked up along the way from our journey of discovery with Skype and Video Conferencing.
(If you’ve got some to share with us ……. please do!)

Before the skyping/conferencing

• Practise speaking slowly and clearly (it’s amazing how many students don’t pronounce their words very well)
• If your topic is prearranged – have a list of the students names on the board
• Organise your class to sit in rows with an aisle (makes movement up the camera and mic manageable)
• Place a “speaker chair” in front of the webcam/camera

(thanks to my wonderful collaborative project partner Ms Corfino for the last  two tips)
During the skyping/conferencing

• Don’t have your speakers too loud – this is a major cause of feedback
• Encourage your students to say who they are before they continue to speak
• One class asks a question, the other class answers then asks their question etc – ^{an organisational system that seems to work really well}
• Use a wikispace / pbwiki / blog to record the results and information from your conversations!

Other helpful tips

• We’ve found that a hand held mic works very well to help establish one person speaking
  (you can’t speak without the “talking stick”)
• Prearrange a student to say thank you for talking with us today
• If possible, test your equipment (without the students)

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