The Big Blog

Perfect your Skype in the Classroom Projects

We've seen and heard about some great projects on Skype in the classroom so far. To make it easier for you to find the right partners and the right projects we've made some improvements to how you create, share, and provide valuable feedback on projects.

But before we move on to the details, if you'd like to hear more about the transformational power of Skype in the classroom, join our CEO, Tony Bates, at The Social Good Summit via Livestream from 2:00-2:20 p.m E.T. today, or follow the discussion @socialgood or by watching the #socialgood hashtag on Twitter.

Meanwhile, we hope the following updates will help you to have more successful projects on Skype in the classroom.

When creating projects you can now:

• Confirm an end date for your project


• Hyperlink to additional content when you are creating projects, or sharing resources for that matter: simply type in your link within the body and it will appear as a URL when you publish it


• Receive email notifications to help keep you on track with your project


• Get project inspiration from teachers who have had successful projects on Skype in the classroom


• Affiliate yourself with the school you teach at via your profile page

Sharing your project is easier:

• Get a Skype in the classroom badge to help spread the word about your affiliation with Skype in the classroom on your blog and on the wider web


• Find out how you can 'promote' your project effectively, for example, look at our project's sharing tools, including how to get an embed code to share your project more widely on the web


• Select the 'I'd like to do this' button on projects you'd like to participate in. This will show your avatar and a note about your participation on the project page. It replaces the 'favourite' button


• Stay up to date when new projects are added to the site by adding the Projects' RSS/Atom feed to your feed reader

Provide feedback on projects to help inspire others:

• Click on the 'I've done this' button on the project page so you can leave feedback and content (photos/videos) about your project experience.

These changes aim to help everybody create and experience great projects on Skype in the classroom. In 3 simple steps this is how you do it:

1. Set clear goals - and select an end date

   Step 1: Set clear goals from Skype in the classroom on Vimeo.



2. Share your project - with as many people as possible

   Step 2: Share your project from Skype in the classroom on Vimeo.



3. Provide updates and leave feedback - for everyone to see

   Step 3: Leave feedback from Skype in the classroom on Vimeo.

There's more at the project inspiration page we mentioned earlier.

Over 16,000 educators around the world are now using Skype in the classroom to share ideas and resources, and collaborate on a wide variety of projects. It's easy to join them here now if you haven't already.

As always, if you'd like to let us know what you think you can email us at education@skype.net or click directly on the 'Feedback' tab on education.skype.com. Alternatively you can always join us on Twitter or Facebook.

We hope you enjoy being back at school!

Skype in the classroom just got a little bit better

Over the last few months Skype in the Classroom has grown to a community of over 15,000 teachers who are collaborating on a wide variety of projects across the globe. During that period we've taken some time to sit back, listen to your feedback, and make some subtle improvements.

New features include:

• Timezone converter: on project pages you can now check which timezone your potential partner teachers or class are in to make scheduling easier
• Filter: you can now filter teachers in the 'Teachers' tab by country by using the 'sort by country' drop-down menu on the left tab
• Bookmark: you can add 'teachers', 'resources', and 'projects' as favourites via the 'add as favourite' button and you can see them all on your profile page
• Project participation: If other teachers mark a project as their favourite, you can see who they are on the project page
• View: you can now view your own resources and projects on your profile page

• Share: it's easy to share resources on Twitter by clicking the 'tweet' icon

• Manage: you can now receive email notifications when someone comments on content that you share, by selecting the 'notify me' box when you edit your profile. 

We hope these changes make it a little bit easier for you to connect with colleagues and classes around the world. If you'd like to let us know what you think you can email us at education@skype.net or click directly on the 'Feedback' tab on education.skype.com. Alternatively you can always follow us via Twitter or Facebook. Meanwhile, more work is in progress.

Thank you to everyone who has contributed feedback so far, and to everyone who has become a valuable part of the community.  

"If not for Skype, my wife would have left me by now!" How Skype is improving relationships for UNHCR employees.

"Skype is the main mode of communication to keep in touch with my family," says Haridass Sriram, a UNHCR field protection officer in Aweil, South Sudan. "Everyday I call them using Skype. I can see my two twins who are now 4 and a half months old and talk to my wife everyday." He laughs, "If not for Skype, my wife would have left me by now!"

Sriram's twin girls in Sri Lanka get to check-in with their daddy in Sudan over Skype video everyday.

Sriram's story is just one of many. Now that Skype is available to 2,750 UNHCR field staff in some of the most remote parts of the world, UNHCR employees are able to keep in close contact with friends and families that they have often been separated from for months at a time.

Since our announcement back in December, a bespoke low-bandwidth version of Skype has now been rolled out to 90 hardship locations, providing employees with both free and low-cost voice and video calls over the Internet even when connection quality is poor. By the end of 2011, the aim if for Skype to be in at least 80% of UNHCR hardship locations and available to more than 3,000 staff members.

To further build on our partnership and commitment to breaking down the barriers to communication we have today launched an 'interactive penpals' pilot education program with Australia for UNHCR. Here & There hopes to create a unique partnership between an Australian school and a Ugandan refugee school so that children in both countries can learn about each other's lives over Skype as part of their geography lessons. To find out how your school can participate you can go to www.herethere.org.au.*

In celebration of World Refugee Day, Skype is also supporting UNHCR to increase public awareness of the plight of the world's 15 million refugees by:

• Delivering advertising in the Home tab in Skype for Windows. The adverts will appear in the US today and the UK tomorrow.
• Deliver dynamic in-client messaging to all Skype Windows users in 5 different languages leading throughout Refugee Week.

To find out more about UNHCR go to www.unhcr.org/do1thing

* Only available to schools in Australia

Every day, thousands of people run from war, persecution and terror.
We believe even 1 is too many.
do 1 thing.
Donate to UNHCR