Our school district is pushing very hard to have Skype unblocked for all staff and faculty, and possibly students. We hear from many Admins (coincidentally the ones who keep in touch with their kids away at college) that all school districts have Skype available to them and I was wondering how true that is across the country. I did call other local schools and they have it blocked.
Do anyone of you know if Skype is open in your district? If so, what do you use it for? Thanks for you help!
Posted by Stephan (Member # 7549) on :
It is not blocked in my district, and works with my personal laptop. We are not allowed to install anything onto the school equipment though that is not already on it.
My district spent $800,000 to buy 80 web cams through a company called ProComm(sp?). With Skype free, and no raises in three years, I was a little upset.
A friend actually recently used Skype to talk to a 5th grade class in Boulder about recycling.
Posted by advice for robots (Member # 2544) on :
$10,000 per web cam? That thing had better make you breakfast as well.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
Skype is open at our college, but of course we're a college. I can't think of a reason why any institute of higher education would block it.
Posted by MattP (Member # 10495) on :
quote:Originally posted by advice for robots: $10,000 per web cam? That thing had better make you breakfast as well.
It's dedicated video conferencing hardware. It has some bells and whistles that don't come with your standard web cam and can be found in a lot of corporate environments but IMO it's largely a waste of money given what PCs and web cams can do these days.
Even the world's coolest PC-based webcam "only" costs $3000 each. (We have several of these where I work.)
Posted by Stephan (Member # 7549) on :
Polycom, that's the company.
Posted by DarkKnight (Member # 7536) on :
Stephan, we have some Polycom units as well which we don't use. Does anyone use it personally?
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
Skype, you mean?
Posted by MattP (Member # 10495) on :
We don't use the Polycom units that we have here, but we use the RoundTable/CX5000 units all the time. They are also sold by Polycom now but were originally developed/sold by Microsoft.
Posted by DarkKnight (Member # 7536) on :
Yep, sorry, does any one use Skype personally and how would you rate it for video chat if you do that
Posted by DarkKnight (Member # 7536) on :
MattP, what do you use them for, or how are they used? We have all this very expensive video technology with no plan on what to do with it
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
I use Skype a fair amount personally, but rarely have the need professionally. That said, several of our instructors use it, and I'm absolutely certain that our resident students do. It's perfectly adequate for video chat, but it wouldn't in and of itself be sufficient for distance learning or professional collaboration.
Posted by DarkKnight (Member # 7536) on :
Thanks Tom, our District wants to use it for distance learning between high schools and I'm not sure that Skype is going to be a viable solution, as opposed to something like Moodle or Blackboard, with Illuminate
Posted by MattP (Member # 10495) on :
quote:Originally posted by DarkKnight: MattP, what do you use them for, or how are they used? We have all this very expensive video technology with no plan on what to do with it
The team I work on has a couple members in a remote office. We have daily status meetings with them as well as other working meetings. We use it with Microsoft Lync - an app that includes desktop sharing, whiteboard, and other collaboration tools in addition to the video conferencing.
I can't think of what I would use this technology for in a school environment unless you also need to regularly work with remote colleagues or students. I know the language/cultural immersion programs at the schools around here use Skype to talk to their sister schools around the world.
Posted by DarkKnight (Member # 7536) on :
Our district has licenses for GoToMeeting and GoToWebinar which we rarely, but should, use. The district applied for a grant and used general funds so we can say we are a hi-tech district which does distance learning...
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
Do you actually intend to do distance learning?
Posted by Stephan (Member # 7549) on :
I use Skype all the time personally, and once for my classroom.
The quality depends on the quality of the web cams and the strength of the internet connection. My new laptop came with a GREAT web cam and I am told my image appears crystal clear on the other end.
Posted by DarkKnight (Member # 7536) on :
if there are less than 10 students in one HS interested in taking an AP course, and that course is being taken at the other HS, then the less than 10 students will 'Skype' over to the HS offering the course. Or at least that is how the Admins are explaining it
Posted by Stephan (Member # 7549) on :
International uses have one big problem, time zones. Syncing with a school in Asia, Africa, or Europe is just going to be tough.
Posted by DarkKnight (Member # 7536) on :
Stephan, none of our Admins realized that until I mentioned it to them...that was a fun awkward moment Posted by Stephan (Member # 7549) on :
quote:Originally posted by DarkKnight: if there are less than 10 students in one HS interested in taking an AP course, and that course is being taken at the other HS, then the less than 10 students will 'Skype' over to the HS offering the course. Or at least that is how the Admins are explaining it
I assume someone is going to be in the room still to monitor. Have they worked out submission of classwork, homework, and tests?
Posted by DarkKnight (Member # 7536) on :
Stephan, I wouldn't make that assumption. I brought up all of those issues (no one had considered it yet) and in our discussion I mentioned someone in the room, like a teacher. The Admins agreed they should have a teacher in the classroom. I let it hang for a moment to see if they would notice the irony.... they didn't notice. I had to tell them
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
DK, Skype on its own is not suitable for a distance learning solution; you'll want the ability to share documents and whiteboards, and for the teacher to monitor multiple incoming streams at once. More professional software -- including some dedicated classroom solutions -- exists, and I'd recommend going that route instead.
(Note that I don't recommend Blackboard or Moodle's live offerings at this point, either, although they're still a step up from Skype on its lonesome. If you've already got a Blackboard license or a Moodle installation, though, they're not particularly expensive plug-ins and would represent a better option for you.)
IMO, a teacher trying to run an entire class split evenly between physical students and remote students over Skype would have to be not only extraordinarily patient and tech-savvy but darn near heroic.
Posted by DarkKnight (Member # 7536) on :
TD, do you have a recommendation for distance learning software? Money is no object for the most part
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
What's your bandwidth situation, and how many separate inbound connections do you anticipate at any given time? What software are you currently using for an LMS?
Posted by Stephan (Member # 7549) on :
quote:Originally posted by DarkKnight: TD, do you have a recommendation for distance learning software? Money is no object for the most part
This being AP, maybe see if they can just do an online course through a college.
Posted by DarkKnight (Member # 7536) on :
We own our own fiber so bandwith inside the district isn't an issue. We are upgrading to a 200MB pipe to the internet for next year. At most, they anticipate no more than 9 inbound connections to a classroom at a time. Total for all distance learning classes between both HS could be up to 30 at any given time. This is a total guess though. We don't have an overall LMS software. Each school buys whatever they want, nothing is coordinated between them
Posted by DarkKnight (Member # 7536) on :
quote: This being AP, maybe see if they can just do an online course through a college.
Well, the reason they did away with the honors courses, and are dropping about 70 other courses is because they are forming a separate Collegiate High building which will have the students be enrolled in HS and a local community college at the same time. I think they want to force as many kids as possible into Collegiate High
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
Okay, 30 duplex video connections over fiber should be doable, but you'll probably want to make sure that your internal networking is up to the load. You certainly won't be sending HD video if you actually wind up with 30 simultaneous classes, though.
To be honest, the next place I'd start is to ask the teachers what tools they consider essential. If your schools don't have a shared LMS, for example, stuff as simple as collecting homework and taking tests will turn out to be complicated; the students at one school will need to either log into the LMS run by the host school, or they'll need to somehow transmit their work another way (which is a lot more complicated than it sounds, once you start examining the wrinkles.) A teacher who intends to collect homework by email only, never assigns tests, and teaches mainly through one-way lecture would probably be just fine with something like Skype; a teacher who regularly uses handouts, takes frequent quizzes, and encourages lots of classroom discussion is going to have problems.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
The more I think about this, the less I like it. There is no scenario in which the students in the remote session are not going to feel like second-class citizens, unless the teacher in the live session completely neglects his or her actual classroom. Were we talking about smaller sessions, sitting around a single table or something, I think it'd be workable -- but classrooms are IMO too dynamic and too busy for this to work well, especially with teenagers.
Posted by DarkKnight (Member # 7536) on :
I agree that overall it is a bad idea in our situation. I'm trying to convince them to speak with current AP teachers about distance learning needs and what they think but so far the Admins know best and it's full speed ahead to somewhere...
Posted by Stephan (Member # 7549) on :
quote:Originally posted by DarkKnight: I agree that overall it is a bad idea in our situation. I'm trying to convince them to speak with current AP teachers about distance learning needs and what they think but so far the Admins know best and it's full speed ahead to somewhere...
I have noticed that administrators can sometimes be more interested in what they can brag their school is doing, then actually doing the smart thing.
Posted by DarkKnight (Member # 7536) on :
The response I get is that I do not understand students mentalities. Once they understand the benefit of distance learning, they will stay actively engaged in learning
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
quote:Originally posted by DarkKnight: The response I get is that I do not understand students mentalities. Once they understand the benefit of distance learning, they will stay actively engaged in learning
If I were playing buzzword bingo, that would be a winning string. Posted by Stephan (Member # 7549) on :
I think synchronous learning is great when the entire class is online. One teacher, everyone has individual web cams or chat boxes.
Your admin just wants to mimic those large college lecture halls, where the teacher doesn't know anyone's names.
Posted by DarkKnight (Member # 7536) on :
quote: If I were playing buzzword bingo, that would be a winning string.
To be honest, they did have the word empower in there too, is there really a game buzzword bingo for education? I gotta get that!!
Posted by DarkKnight (Member # 7536) on :
quote: I have noticed that administrators can sometimes be more interested in what they can brag their school is doing, then actually doing the smart thing.
Exactly correct.
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
quote:Originally posted by DarkKnight:
quote: If I were playing buzzword bingo, that would be a winning string.
To be honest, they did have the word empower in there too
BONUS SCORE!
quote:Originally posted by DarkKnight: is there really a game buzzword bingo for education? I gotta get that!!
Thanks Rivka! You have no idea how much you have singlehandedly improved our morale!! Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
I use skype multiple times a day professionally.
I occasionally use it personally.
I never use a camera, and I have no desire to start.
I agree with Tom's general assessment of the distance learning idea.
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
quote:Originally posted by DarkKnight: Thanks Rivka! You have no idea how much you have singlehandedly improved our morale!!
Cool. Posted by Rawrain (Member # 12414) on :
quote:Originally posted by Stephan: It is not blocked in my district, and works with my personal laptop. We are not allowed to install anything onto the school equipment though that is not already on it.
My district spent $800,000 to buy 80 web cams through a company called ProComm(sp?). With Skype free, and no raises in three years, I was a little upset.
A friend actually recently used Skype to talk to a 5th grade class in Boulder about recycling.
Why does your school blow $800,000, while many schools can't even afford paper let alone teachers. I smell scam, and no skype shouldn't be allowed, Skype doesn't teach you anything Teachers, books, and tools do.
Also this would function as a distraction, might aswell allow FB and Twitter too, oh ya, and allow students to use cellphones anytime. Oh ya, even teachers play with their phones in class too /:
I hate school, I went there to learn (even though I had severe difficulties) and I look around and everyone is screwing with their phones, talking in the hall (whilst being late to class), and trying to access websites that shouldn't be allowed....
Thanks for reading these very unstructually sound words.
Most* kids these day's are retarded, being one, the problem is social life is on the up-and-up more than education is.
*edit __________________________ * Also to answer OP's question, My school here in Missouri does not allow it, nor any other social things such as youtube and most radio sites(Which I find bs XD)
[ March 18, 2011, 02:56 PM: Message edited by: Rawrain ]
Posted by Xavier (Member # 405) on :
quote:Most* kids these day's are retarded, being one, the problem is social life is on the up-and-up more than education is.
As an FYI, it is not socially acceptable to use "retarded" as a negative adjective these days.
I know you mean no disrespect to anyone with your usage, but its something you'll have to curb before you get out of high-school.
As for the content of your post, I do enjoy a good rant every now and again .
Posted by Rawrain (Member # 12414) on :
I only make fun of those who choose to be, no those who didn't. That only applies to my usage of retard.
Now if I use gay, well those rules are even harder to type down. Lets just say society use of bad English has gotten hold of me. So I mean happy.
*PS. I graduated already (early), I was in a credit recovery class, which actually got me ahead, though I hated the class and I would have had much fun learning the normal way, if not the students /:
Don't get me wrong I am not entirely a social outcast, I just know there's a time and place for everything, my choice time for talking with friends was lunch, trips to the library, and walking to class(not stopping).
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote:I only make fun of those who choose to be, no those who didn't. That only applies to my usage of retard.
Now if I use gay, well those rules are even harder to type down.
Why not just avoid both words? Consider it vocabulary practice.
Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
quote:As an FYI, it is not socially acceptable to use "retarded" as a negative adjective these days.
I can understand people getting upset about using "retard" in that way. I've never understood the sentiment about the word "retarded", though. It's not like people get similarly upset about saying hat people are really really stupid.
[ March 18, 2011, 06:29 PM: Message edited by: mr_porteiro_head ]
Posted by Rawrain (Member # 12414) on :
My vocabulary is limited and I have no desire to change what I say, simply because someone in the world finds it offensive.
Rules of the internet are being applied as we speak, my original post was mostly on topic, but it got side-tracked by the forum go'ers overlooking of the 'big-picture' and nit-picking individual words, like that matters.
The fact is I have observed others in my surroundings actually becoming more stupid, oh sure they have great co'op with their buddies so as long as they do the work together they can get it done... So collectively they are getting smarter, but.... individually becoming more stupid..........
As for the word retard! You're the one who interprets what I mean by using it. If it helps your imagination, I was one of the few kids in my whole damn school that would play with the special kids just because they looked bored at recess and I even went as far as trying to talk with them if they happen to walk by. I've never treated them any different than I did anyone else, and that's the way it should be. ----------------------------------------------
Now back to the main topic, the fact that DarkKnight's school is trying to push to unlock more social functions -as if there aren't enough at school-, this is really bad, not only is it a waste of the schools budget, but what the hell do you need to do online chatting for, there is this thing called a phone, it's magical, hell you can even contact someone on the other side of the world! It's AMAZING! And do you know what's even more amazing! If you get Vonage you can call those other countries for no additional fee's so like $15 a month + internet at home, and the school won't blow 800 grand on useless communication.
What ever happened to pen-pals as a school function? Fk that let's use skype that way we can talk to 'dem Chinese kids in practically real time it's all the fun with none of the wait. -------------- Final statement: 1. If you're using Skype to communicate you might as well be using a phone, so if you state you're doing this "professionally" it's most likely a lie, unless of course you need to do video conferencing with a CEO even then it's not really necessary unless you're displaying some product, and you don't want to take pictures/video and send them separately.
2. There are few reasons why you need to see the person you're talking to, 1 being "Are they wearing pants?" 2 being "Where are they?" and of course 3 being "What is that?"......
3. My vote is, if darkknight's school has so-much money that they actually get to decide to waste money, it should be taken away.
I've been to MANY schools in my life, and all of them have had money issues even Camp Lejeune Highschool, a school on the military base in NC, the 2 1/2 years I was there, they couldn't even afford paper.
I might continue this rant later....... sad thing is no matter how many words I use that school is going to waste so much money....while other schools out here are firing teachers because they cannot afford them. /sad
Posted by Stephan (Member # 7549) on :
quote:Originally posted by Rawrain:
quote:Originally posted by Stephan: It is not blocked in my district, and works with my personal laptop. We are not allowed to install anything onto the school equipment though that is not already on it.
My district spent $800,000 to buy 80 web cams through a company called ProComm(sp?). With Skype free, and no raises in three years, I was a little upset.
A friend actually recently used Skype to talk to a 5th grade class in Boulder about recycling.
Why does your school blow $800,000, while many schools can't even afford paper let alone teachers. I smell scam, and no skype shouldn't be allowed, Skype doesn't teach you anything Teachers, books, and tools do.
Also this would function as a distraction, might aswell allow FB and Twitter too, oh ya, and allow students to use cellphones anytime. Oh ya, even teachers play with their phones in class too /:
I hate school, I went there to learn (even though I had severe difficulties) and I look around and everyone is screwing with their phones, talking in the hall (whilst being late to class), and trying to access websites that shouldn't be allowed....
Thanks for reading these very unstructually sound words.
Most* kids these day's are retarded, being one, the problem is social life is on the up-and-up more than education is.
*edit __________________________ * Also to answer OP's question, My school here in Missouri does not allow it, nor any other social things such as youtube and most radio sites(Which I find bs XD)
School district, not school. My school district is huge.
I hate it, but it is the way money comes in. The Feds or random companies seeking to donate give us specific grants to be used in specific ways.
Say our county is given a $1 million technology grant. Our desks and buildings could literally be falling a part, if we use it for anything other than technology we lose it.
(Our school ran out of copy paper two months ago by the way, and can't afford any more.)
As for web conferencing? It has potential. It is hard to get students interested in social studies (history, cultures, etc). If I could some how manage to get someone in France to talk to us via Skype while the kids are studying France, it is going to have a positive impact on their education. But like I said earlier, time zones and many other issues have a big impact on such postive uses.
Posted by Stephan (Member # 7549) on :
I personally view "retard" the same way Carlos Mencia does. If you called someone who actually is mentally or physically disabled that word, then I would defend them tooth in nail.
If you called my board of education that for agreeing to spend $800,000 on web cams, I would have to agree.
Posted by Xavier (Member # 405) on :
I personally don't care much about it, I'm not some sort of PC police. It does say things about the speaker that they might not want to convey, though, so thought I'd point that out. If nothing else it conveys "I don't care if my speech violates current social norms". If that's okay with you, then by all means, use it.
Added: And its always possible that I'm the one who is wrong about current social convention, so there's that too.
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