Skype

[Dianne C. Tillman]

Do any of your schools allow Skype to be used by students or teachers?

[Brian Norman]

Yes for staff, No for students. At this time we only have one staff member using Skype... Me.

Brian

[Alice Sather]

In my courses working for Capstone certification, that really go in great depth into excellent integration (following the new ISTE standards), we have had several discussions about Skype. My personal feeling is that, for purposes of integration, it totally has its place - interviews, etc. However, it also has its place in language study. I am pretty sure that TRF has it as a possibility for its German students in H.S. A young man I know who was taking German last year had to talk with English students in Germany via Skype, and it was done at school.

I have Skype on the laptop lab that teachers can use in the classrooms, because they have good built-in mics that work for Skype. As soon as I get more microphones for the lab, it will be on the lab computers. Right now it is only on one. The students haven't used it before this year, but now that the principal understands its use for educational purposes, as she sees the content and output of my courses, we will be able to use it.

I have one unit designed that will need Skype: now I have to find a teacher willing to do that unit. (Before this year I was also a science teacher so I had easy access to a class.) I am in the process of developing another unit, this one for the second grade teacher in social studies, and hope to have Skype contacts within it. I have a teacher in NY who is willing to work with me so the unit can actually be done.

Bottom line - Skype is being used in those schools around the nation that take integration seriously, and it is being used in this area for language courses.

[Maureen Moris]

As far as I know, it has not been an issue addressed by my school.

Right now ... I am the only person using it and I did not ask permission.
It works great for tech support ... and that is all I use it for.
I can see some other possible educational uses in the future ...
but, we are not ready to open that can of worms here, yet. I think
it will require some meetings and policy changes.

Biggest concern would be student use, unless it was strictly supervised. (current student policies with regard to communication outside the building is very strict .. ie: cell phones (very limited use), email, chat rooms, social networking sites, and off campus blogging/communication are blocked and against school policies). Another issue that would probably have to be worked on is network slowdowns ... depending on the amount of use and how fast that use would grow (we already have some slowdowns when numerous users are working with video/audio streaming) ... it is a problem we are going to have to work on regardless.

[Stephen Lien]

I believe you also have to take into consideration the communication structure (and therefore, bandwidth concerns) of Skype.

Skype is peer-to-peer, rather than client-server, meaning that every computer that contains the Skype program is therefore a node in which data traffic is routed. Not only are you downloading voice data when handling a Skype-to-Skype call, but Skype also uses your school's network to route other voice data.

In a controlled environment where there may be one or two computers using Skype at any given time, you will not likely see any bottle-necking with your internet uplink. But if you install Skype in computer labs and allow unfettered access, you'll see network traffic come to a stand-still, because every computer in your school will be relaying Skype data throughout the school network, and too-and-from the school as well.