School on Skype

The sound of a dialing phone echoes throughout the classroom. Jessie answers, “Hi guys!” Behind her we can see Gabe and Dalton walking in and sitting down with their computers. We all say hi, and Isaac shouts, “Dalton!!”   We are calling Monhegan on Skype. It is around 2:00pm. We are calling them to do a writing lesson with them. 

  We start out by answering a question like, “What is the global problem you care most about?” We all think and ponder, then we answer. A lot of us say global warming, Ms. Eysnogle says agriculture. I think these are all good answers, because they are all major problems.

Then Ms. Eysnogle asks Jessie if she wants to explain what we’re doing today. “Sure. Today we’ll be with a partner and reading each other’s work, and having conversations about it. Then we’ll switch partners. Does that make sense?” Jessie responds. 

Nervousness and excitement flood my body.   She tells us who will be our partners. We partner up and read each others stories. We just got Skype on our computers for this purpose, so we can have individual conversations with each other via skype on our own computers.  

The stories were all amazing, I was wowed just by how different they were.    Then we talk about each other’s writing. We Islesford students ask the Monhegan kids to ask us questions about our writing, because we just started and we need a lot of feedback. 

Sadly, we only have about forty-five minutes to talk with them, so Ms. Eysnogle says, “Time to do our debrief.” I’m always so disappointed when she says time is up. Writing and reading with them is so fun.  I sigh. At least we see them again on Friday.

Thanks to the Monhegan School for the pictures! Visit their blog at www.monheganmadness.blogspot.com!