Skype in the Classroom
Skype is a fantastic way to break down the walls of the classroom and connect students to the outside world, but it takes some courage to make a call to someone you may not know. In order to facilitate the use of Skype in the classroom, I modeled it for our staff in a full staff professional development session. During the session, I connected with teachers from Oman and Thailand, and an engineer from Texas Instruments. (First pic in gallery)
Throughout the semester, various teachers connected with other classrooms and professionals. Student gained many new perspectives that would otherwise be unlikely for them to experience if it weren't for bold teachers willing to Skype. (last three pics in gallery) |
Collaboration with Mr. Abraham, Science Teacher in Florida
Caleb is a friend of mine that moved from Michigan to teach at Trinity Lutheran in Delray Beach, FL. He's over 1000 miles from me, but we collaborated and communicated on at last 5 different occasions via email/phone to launch a solar cooking project based on the NextGen science standards. His project was successful. A few of his students solar ovens reached over 250 degrees and cooked brownies, muffins, and cookies. This email shows some of our correspondence. I also attach a picture of the google sheets document that he used to record student data. He adapted this from my original materials to work with his students.
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Collaboration with Mr. Zill, Former HS Science Teacher
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Mr. Zill, a science teacher at my former high school does fantastic science demonstrations that connect to theological concepts. It made me think of the digital God is Like assignments I learned how to do from Mrs. Baker (6th and 7th grade science teacher). I decided to email him and ask about the old assignments we did in addition to offering him some resources about what we do with our God is Like assignments. In the end, I ended up with a packet of his demonstrations and he ended up with a digital variation of something similar that encourages kids make analogies between science concepts and theological principles, create visuals of their analogies, and increase their technical skill in Notability.
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