1 Show and tell
Let students talk about their mobile phones, and what they use them for. Many of us develop serious emotional attachments to our phones, and love showing or telling others about them. See this lesson planintroducing the topic of mobile phones from Jo Budden.

Two high schools in East Tennessee adopted video conferencing services, allowing the facilities to share resources, information, faculty and increase collaboration. The schools are able to use the technology to create integrated classrooms for niche subjects and topics.

Normally, adding a new class to the curriculum would cost each school money for a teacher and supplies. Using video conferencing, the schools can combine the classrooms, share a teacher and all the necessary materials for the course. This way, schools can offer more unique, focused courses students show interest in taking, and not worry about filling the seats to make the new class worth the expense, Blount County NBC affiliate WBIR reported.

Even outside the classroom students are using video conferencing services, with internships and mentoring programs as more companies are taking on young professionals to work remotely. According to Bloomberg, college students are starting to apply for internships that allow work to be completed around their class schedule virtually, using video conferencing technology. Students are able to gain valuable experience in a variety of fields, while balancing schoolwork and a social life. The increase in virtual internships comes in response to the rising number of companies enabling flexible workplaces for a more mobile workforce.

1. Collaborative.
If Web 2.0 has taught us anything, it’s to play nicely together. Sure, there are times for buckling down and working alone, but in most cases, the collaborative process boosts everyone’s game. In progressives schools across the country, students and teachers are learning from each other in all sorts of ways.a powerful tool in education. Students are collaborating with each other through social media to learn more about specific subjects, to test out ideas and theories, to learn facts, and to gauge each others’ opinions.

They’re finding each other on their own kid-specific social networking sites, on their blogs, on schools’ sites, and of course on Facebook and Twitter. Though Facebook is still a red herring when it comes to school policy (Massachusetts districts have threatened to fire teachers who friend students on Facebook), and educators are split over whether tweeting in class is disruptive or helpful, the sites continue to be pervasive in both higher-ed and K-12. Educators know they can grab students’ attention where they naturally live outside the classroom — the online social world, whether or not it’s Facebook.

“If you’re teaching something that’s usually bland and you insert a simple tool that allows students to connect with each other or their peers in other schools and countries whenever they want, you just see kids’ faces light up,” says veteran educator Chris Lehmann of the Science Leadership Academy.
Educators Unite

But social networking is not just for teens, as evidenced by the 500 million-plus Facebook users. Teachers are putting their collective smarts together to find the best ways of engaging students, using social media to teach everything from reading and writing to Shakespeare. Educators are alsousing social media to connect with each other, share ideas, and find the best teaching tools and practices. Sites like Classroom 2.0, Teacher Tube, PBS Teachers, Edmodo, Edutopia, and countless others are lit up with teachers sharing success stories, asking for advice, and providing support. Collaboration is happening offline, too, at schools where educators team-teach and organize professional learning networks.

Collaboration is also finding its way into curriculum with open-source sites to which everyone is encouraged to contribute. Working together is woven into the fabric of project-based schools like the Science Leadership in Academy, which focuses on science, technology, math and entrepreneurship, and Napa New Tech High High. The idea is simple: by working together, students figure out how to find common ground, balance each others’ skills, communicate clearly, and be accountable to the team for their part of the project. Just as they would in the work place.
Sharing information and connecting with others — whether we know them personally or not — has proven to be

Teachers use this technique in different ways. Some assign interactive quizzes and online collaborative projects at home, some use computer time in class, some assign watching videos and lectures at home and use class time for hands-on projects, some place most of the curriculum online and work one-one-one with students in class. However they choose to do it, the best examples of blended learning programs involve teachers who use home-time online discussions and collaborative projects as fuel for content and discussion in the classroom.

This movement is growing quickly — the Department of Education plans to spend $30 million over the next three years to bring blended learning to 400 schools around the country.

What these trends mean:

Given the growing momentum of these trends, what does it mean for students, teachers, schools, and the education community at large?

• Teachers’ and students’ relationships are changing, as they learn from each other.
• Teachers roles are shifting from owners of information to facilitators and guides to learning.
• Educators are finding different ways of using class time.
• Introverted students are finding ways to participate in class discussions online.
• Different approaches to teaching are being used in the same class.
• Students are getting a global perspective.

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Students at Lakeland High School in Yorktown, New York, recently got a chance to speak with six veterans who served in World War II, the Korean War and the Vietnam War, and the presentation was shared via video conferencing equipment to other schools throughout the Hudson Valley.

It’s the New Way of Teaching…and Learning. 

Whether it’s teachers collaborating on a curriculum or administrators meeting with state officials, educators report that video conferencing has successfully addressed a host of educational, managerial and student challenges.

Educators report at least 10 key areas where video conferencing has positively impacted their ability to teach, students’ ability to learn and the organization’s ability to do more with less.

Specifically, video conferencing has helped educational institutions to:
1. Leverage existing faculty to meet the needs of larger student bodies. Video conferencing has allowed schools at all levels to offer students access to more courses by sharing highly qualified faculty via distance learning. Students are also able to participate in concurrent enrollment and dual-credit classes via video without missing essential classroom interaction, often an absent component of online courses.