4 Steps to a Skype-tastic Video Conference
7 05 2007We had our second video conference with our partner class in New Zealand last Thursday – and this time I remembered to take pictures!
There were a few things we learned last time around that helped make this conference a little smoother:
- Set up a “hot seat” right in front of the video camera so that students are automatically framed perfectly in the video feed.
- If you have one, a good quality microphone makes a huge difference.
- Arrange seating so that all students can easily come up to the video/mic without having to push through a forest of legs. We found that a max of two seats next to each other was right, and a large aisle helped students easily move between their seat and the front of the room.
- After the conference is finished, keep track of the conversations for future reference.
The students thoroughly enjoyed their second conference and were able to get to know their collaborators a little bit better this time around. They especially appreciated being able to put a face to a name and finding common interests with their partners in NZ.
Some background info:
These conferences take us about a half hour – we always make sure that every student has a chance to say something to the group. The set-up takes me about 5 minutes and consists of having the students move their chairs to one side of the room, turning the computer around, turning the projector and speakers on, and clicking on the “call” button. An interesting fact I forgot to mention in my last post about our video conferences is that the class in NZ has a Windows PC and we’re using a Mac – so Windows to Mac Skype video is no problem at all.
An idea for the future:
Next time I’d like to make the video conference more like a “center” in the classroom, and have it open and running in one corner of the room so students can chat one on one, without having the whole class watching. Now that they know each other a little better, they can focus on collaborating on their work, while still utilizing this exciting new tool.
Hi! My name is Kim Cofino. 
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Yay! to another successful skype conference. It is amazing how much we are all learning (even the teachers!) each time we use skype. We love the pictures! (why didn’t I think of that??)
This project is going so smoothly due to your awesome expertise! It’s been such a motivating project too. We will be very sorry when it comes to an end but here’s hoping some of the collaborators will remain in contact for many years to come.
[...] Ms C’s fantastic idea of a “hotseat” worked very, very well. Check out the pictures on their blog. Next time I’ll remember to take some pictures – promise! [...]
[...] always learning » 4 Steps to a Skype-tastic Video Conference Tags:christophercraft, learning20, mscofino, mshroom18, nzchrissy, skype, videoconference web20 [...]
Chrissy,
Thank you! And I am enjoying this project so much due to you’re amazing expertise and organization! You are truly a pleasure to work with
[...] invaluable resource for me in preparing and setting the conferences up was Kim Cofino’s post 4 Steps to a Skype-tastic Video Conference. I set up 4 “hot seats” in the first row. The webcam was directly aimed at them, while [...]
[...] 4 Steps to a Skype-tastic Video Conference | always learning – 4 Steps to a Skype-tastic Video Conference 7 05 2007 [...]
[...] 4 Steps to Skyptastic Video Conference by Kim Cofino [...]