Connect Your Students Globally Via Skype Preparing your students for the Skype Call (continued) Consider having a “Show and Tell” item to share in order to spark a story or questions. Maybe you could to establish a Skype ritual, like singing a song or playing a game of “Rock, Paper, Scissors”. Have a digital camera and/or flip camera ready, so you can document your video conference connection. You can also record the Skype conversation with a software program such as Ecamm (mac) or Pamela (PC). It is a good habit to send a reminder email the day before or the morning of the Skype call to your connection contact. It might be good to mention something like “Looking forward to talking to you in “x” number of hours. This could help prevent timezone confusions. It is just an additional precaution to avoid waiting with a room full of students and no one answers your call on the other end. Assign different jobs to as many students as possible in order to engage students during the Skype call beyond having to listen to the conversation. Take a look at the handouts for possible jobs and their descriptions. It is helpful to create a list of the order your students will be coming up to the webcam/ microphone and make this list visible for all students in the class to see.
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