Using Skype in the classroom without a doubt enhances the literacy experience for a student.

Here is what I have seen:

1. Students practice their communication skills

  • speak with clarity
  • listen for meaning

2. Students make visual connections that deepen their understanding of a text

3. Students build on their schema

4. Students become much more engaged in the text

5. Students begin to look for ways to question the text in an effort to have another Skype experience in the classroom.

Of course many others have written about this same experience.  Just google “using skype in the classroom” and you will see what I mean.

While reading the story Dear Mr. Henshaw by Beverly Cleary, my fifth grade students were generating questions about the main character’s dad who is an over the road truck driver.  Leigh Botts, the young boy and main character, missed his dad because he was gone all the time due to his job and it ultimately lead to a divorce.

Here is an abbreviated list of their questions:

  • Where do truck drivers sleep?
  • How do they cook on the truck?
  • Do they use maps or GPS?
  • How do truckers make their appointment like the dentist or doctors?
  • What do they haul?
  • Don’t they get tired of driving all day?
  • I wonder if they like their job?
  • How do they deal with being away from home for so long?

So we turned to Skype and called a truck driver so they could get some answers.  The truck driver we called is my dad and it just so happens that my mom is also on the road with him.  They have a laptop with a web-cam and we were able to sit in the front seat and get a first hand view of the life of a truck driver.  The students enthusiasm was palpable and it was clear that I need to continue to incorporate powerful literacy experiences like this in the future.

Here is a small portion of that experience: