Tips from Kathy Cassidy

As a part of the Awakening Possibilities Conference, we attended a great session by Kathy Cassidy @kathycassidy  Her presentation links are here. 


Kathy's ideas for using Skype and Twitter in your classroom:

• Mystery number Skype
• Reading buddies via video conference
• Readers theatre performances
• Measurement - predict which is heavier/lighter and find out with Skype buddies
• Bringing in an expert or an author
• Learn from other classrooms via Tweets
• Write a collaborative story using a Twitter Hashtag
• Live Tweet an event or presentation
• Challenge others:  Kathy's class did a snow clothes challenge to see how fast people could get dressed in their winter clothes!

How we have used Skype and Twitter in our classroom:

• Presentation from an expert: During our Olympics project, we had an Olympic torch bearer from the 2012 games as a guest speaker via Skype.
• Collaboration:  The Grade 1s work with the OLCS Kindergartens throughout the school year.  We complete projects together, do learning activities together and share things we are proud of! 
• Making Connections:  During our Olympics project, we could interact with real Olympians!  We really enjoyed asking them questions, seeing their pictures and messages and learning more about them.  We also interact with other classrooms.
• Sharing:  We Tweet all kinds of learning: students write math story problems and wait for our Twitter friends to answer, we summarize key points from our reading, we ask questions to find out more. 
• Making Changes:  We encourage others to take action when we are working on a project to make a difference (for example, our Twitter friends are helping with  Track Your Trash and One Hour, No Power ).

Kathy shared useful resources such as:
Projects By Jen
Skype an Author
Skype in the Classroom
ePals
KidBlog
edublogs