These Penguins Can Show You How Skype Is Trying To Revolutionize The Classroom

Jillian D'Onfro Today

Since Skype launched its education initiative, Skype in the Classroom, nearly three years ago, the community has really taken off.

To date, the program has helped more than 80,000 teachers in 235 countries collaborate on more than 8,000 lessons taught over Skype.

Teachers create profiles that list things like where they’re located, the ages of their students, and the subjects they teach. Meanwhile, Skype has partnered with organisations like NASA, Penguin Books, SeaTrek.org, and Microsoft, who post upcoming Skype lessons for teachers to enroll in so they may take their students on free, virtual field trips.

With Earth Day on the horizon, Skype shared an adorable video of a class of UK students getting an interactive lesson about endangered penguins from Rifqah Taliep of The Southern African Foundation for the Conservation of Coastal Birds.

The video encompasses the initiatives goal: To use technology to give students amazing, immersive educational experiences that they couldn’t get from reading a textbook or watching a film. Instead of reading about endangered penguins, they can see them, while asking an expert questions, live.

Without stepping outside the classroom, the students learn about real-world wildlife rehabilitation.

The idea is that learning about something by actually seeing and interacting with it, makes the topic more exciting and memorable for the students.

By registering for the Skype in the classroom community, teachers receive free Skype Group Video Calling for 12 months as a special benefit of the program.

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