Podcast Series: Innovations in Education

Explore the full series of eSchool News podcasts hosted by Kevin Hogan—created to keep you on the cutting edge of innovations in education.

Skype in the classroom teams up with NASA to connect students, astronauts

(Christopher Halloran / Shutterstock.com)

In celebration of World Teacher’s Day on Oct. 5, Skype in the classroom—the education outreach program of Skype, the Microsoft-owned service for making free voice and video calls online—has announced new partnerships with NASA and seven other organizations.

These new organizations will join more than 38,000 teachers already working together on 1,800 global educational projects through Skype in the classroom, the organization said Oct. 3.

Through its new partnership with Skype in the classroom, NASA’s Digital Learning Center will feature various live projects in which students can learn how to prepare a space vehicle for liftoff, help scientists and engineers explore the basic principles of matter, and design their own spacesuit mission patch. Participating classrooms also will discover what it’s like to live and work in space and will be introduced to basic robotics.…Read More

New developments enhance school video use

School video use has come a long way from the days when expensive video conferencing systems were required to connect students and experts in different locations.

Thanks to new advancements in video technology, students and teachers can hold live, face-to-face conversations with scientists in remote areas of the globe from whatever device they might own. Teachers can choose from a variety of free or low-cost tools to prepare video-based lessons that let them “flip” their classroom. And schools can use any number of products that make video editing and production more accessible for students.

School video use has come a long way from the days when expensive (and clunky) video conferencing systems were required to connect students and subject-matter experts in different locations.

Today, for instance, nearly 37,000 teachers from around the world are using Skype in the Classroom to link up with other classrooms through Skype, the free, Microsoft-owned service for making voice or video calls over the internet.…Read More