This document provides 15 tips for using web conferencing in the classroom. The tips include connecting students to educational broadcasts, having experts like authors or musicians visit via video chat, facilitating student interactions with other schools to share book choices or complete collaborative projects, and hosting virtual field trips to museums or having historical figures answer student questions. Conducting role play activities or assemblies that incorporate video conferencing is also suggested. The tips aim to enhance learning and help bring the outside world into the classroom.

1. 15 Interesting Ways* to use
Web Conferencing in the
Classroom
*and tips Slim Shady. by @chris
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution
Noncommercial Share Alike 3.0 License.

2. Top tips for Successful Web-
Conferencing
Add your tips here
• Have a test call in advance of the actual conference.
• Decide on one adult to 'chair' the conference.
• Take turns and try not to interupt.
• Try to keep your class quiet while others are speaking.
• Have a microphone that can be passed around or make it
easy for kids to come up and speak to a microphone.
• Think about lighting and sound levels.
• If bandwidth is an issue, try to limit movement to preserve
video quality.

3. #1 - Connect to your class to the
broadcast from an education event
There are many free tools for organisers of, or participants at,
an event to use to broadcast live from a session or 'the floor'.
Flashmeeting, Glow Meet, and live stream on Twitcam can all
be run using a basic webcam attached to a notebook, and a
wired or wifi connection.
If you know the educationist who is broadcasting, consider
letting your class follow a session and encourage them to give
you text-based questions for the presenters, which you can
then send by one of a variety of methods, such as email,
Twitter or text chat. @parslad

4. #2 - Have an expert visit your classroom.
I teach band and choir and it is challenging and expensive
to find specialists to visit the classroom. However, with
video conferencing I am able to give that bassoon player a
lesson. I can also have leading conductors listen in to
rehearsals and offer tips directly to the students. I am
sure the same technique can be used for any discipline.
@brandtschneider
http://brandtschneider.blogspot.com

5. #3 - Contact an author or a poet
Use skype or videoconferencing to have a meeting with an
author or a poet, to interact with the pupils and to share
stories with.
Some authors in the UK are willing to Skype into a class,
as it doesn't involve travelling or much disruption. See this
link for authors in the US who are willing to do this with
classes:
http://skypeanauthor.wetpaint.com/
See this site to contact UK authors, where you could ask
about the possibility of videoconferencing:
http://www.contactanauthor.co.uk/

6. #4 - Use Skype to connect with other schools around the
world - as part of a larger event or just to share book
choices, differences in education etc. Encourage students to
read aloud to peers in other countries.The world seems
smaller now - make the most of it! Author events are
expensive - share with schools you are in contact with by
having a video conference.
Bev Humphrey
Libwithattitude
www.writepath.ning.com

7. #5 - Use Video Conferencing to support
transition work between primary and
secondary schools.
Setup a conference allowing the
present year 6s to chat with last year's
year 6s. An excellent way of putting
worried minds at ease!
Chris Thomas
@cthomas18
www.iprimary.co.uk
(See a video tutorial on
FlashMeeting at this site)

8. #6 Santa-Chat
• Find a suitably jolly and willing volunteer.
• Volunteer sets themselves up with a webcam in front of an appropriately
snowy projected background dressed as Santa.
• Conduct the web conference as if 'Live from Lapland'.
• Involve an elf (or elves) if possible.
• Ensure that Santa is well briefed in matters such as reindeer names and diet
and knows how to deal with houses with only gas fires, caravans etc. (Santa
needs to think on his feet!)
• If possible, situate Santa in an air conditioned room. (VCs can be sweaty and
potentially stressful without the added difficulties of full beard and suit).
• Include plenty of Christmas joy!
Dughall McCormick
@dughall
Image courtesy of 'Powi' through Flickr Creative Commons Attribution

9. #7 Story telling
• Find a willing volunteer with story reading or telling
experience.
• Discuss in advance the story to be shared.
• Conduct the conference - the story reader/teller could be in
costume and could share illustrations if a book is used.
• Use the conference as a stimulus for some drama and/or
other cross curricular work.
• Hold another conference and allow the children to share
their drama, tell their stories (etc) back to the story teller.
Dughall McCormick
@dughall

10. #8 Web conference as part of a 'book
day'
In conjunction with other schools, hold a conference at the
beginning of the day for children to share their favourite books
and stories.
Through the day, use other collaborative tools such as
http://etherpad.com/ and online forums to create collaborative
stories.
Hold another conference mid-way through and/or at the end of
the day to share and see how things are going.
Dughall McCormick
@dughall

11. #9 Have a conference with a museum
You can have a free VC with a miner from the
National Coal Mining Museum
http://www.ncm.org.uk/displaypage.asp?id=129
The National Space Centre also provides a VC
service that can be part of a 'Space Mission' project.
http://www.spacecentre.co.uk/Page.aspx/83/VIDEO_CONFERENCING
/
Dughall McCormick
@dughall

12. #10 Have a conference with a historical
character.
• Find a willing volunteer.
• Prepare questions for the character with children.
• Share the questions with the character.
• Volunteer appears in role on VC and answers the questions.
Dughall McCormick
@dughall

13. #11 Have a conference as part of a
role-play day.
See #9 for a 'Space Mission' idea.
A similar thing can be done as part of a day in which students are in a
'Newsroom'.
Students are given roles such as: photographers/video, web-team, newspaper,
editor, sound recorders etc.
The day is based on 'A Day at the (Olympic) Games'.
The day starts with a VC from 'The Man at the Games'. He outlines their roles and
the broad outline for the day issuing tasks via a learning platform.
Through the day, the students conduct interviews with sports stars, take video of
events, produce a website and a newspaper.
Beware! Periodically, 'The Man at the Games' will interupt procedings via VC with
breaking news such as drugs scandals, results of events, fog interupting a
football match etc!
Dughall McCormick
@dughall

14. #12 - Make the conference just a
part of the learning experience
Use email, forums, voicethread etc to share similarities and
differences. These tools give children opportunities to make
one to one contact and real friends.
Paul Greenwood
Northwood School
http://northwoodweb.com/Yr5/

15. #13 - Conference with university students
• Connect with (former?) students at university to pass
along advice, challenges, and to offer encouragement.
• Connect with university clubs/organizations that
support curriculum objectives.
• Connect with university students that can act as role
models for underrepresented students.
John Miller
@room162
mrmillersblog.com

16. #14 - Host your school assembly
online
• Instead of having a weekly assembly in your school
hall, why not host it online ?
• Have students prepare slides and take on the
speaking roles.
• Use photos and videos to illustrate the learning or
special acitivites that occured at school that week.
• ParentsFriends who couldn't normally make it to
school can log in and watch the assembly and if it's
recorded, watch at a time that suits them.
• Watch an example
Scott Duncan
@sduncan0101
http://mrduncan.globalte
acher.org.au/

17. #15 - Skype Across America:
Long-term Projects
• Our 4th and 5th graders from Arizona decided to Skype all
50 states rather than prepare traditional reports.
• Here's what we've learned form this new method:
o New vocabulary, like combines and tailgating
o Interesting sites, like Mud Island in Tennessee (a wading-
size model of the Mississippi River)
o Airy facts: 4 of the 8 states we visited this week had
major connections to the beginnings of flight and space
o Diversity: all-boys schools, ELL students, dialects
o Time zones and elapsed time
o Familiarity with videoconferencing - How many adults use
this in careers now? What about in 10 years?
• For more information, visit http://bit.ly/SkypeUS or
@ascensiontucson

18. If you would like to:
• Contribute your ideas and tips to the
presentation.
• Let me know how you have used the resource.
• Get in touch.
If you add a tip (or even if you
don't) please tweet about it
and the link so more people
can contribute.
I have created a page for all Image: ‘Sharing‘
of the Interesting Ways
presentations on my blog. Thanks for helping
The whole family in one Tom Barrett
place :-)
Have you seen Maths Maps
yet?