Skype 5, currently in Beta, has the capability to allow up to 5 users to share a conference call. For me as a an online teacher, this is exciting news indeed. It means that I can offer group classes to students who may be separated from each other by thousands of miles.
Many students, especially in the Far East, cannot afford even my low prices for classes. A class shared between four students, however, would be affordable to most.
Students could arrange with their friends to take group conversation classes with me online. All would then join the class at the appointed time and would enjoy a classroom type environment.
It will be very interesting to see how this works in practice.
On my wish-list for Skype is two-way screen sharing. I use screen sharing in my online classes every day. It makes teaching easier and learning is faster. What I would like to see is the ability for the student to also interact with the screen at the same time as me. Currently, the student has to initiate a screen share of their own, and thus screen sharing goes from one to the other, but never both at the same time.
Posted under Writing
Author: Richard : July 26, 2010
