Virtual Guest Speakers

As teachers we always strive for our students to make connections between our lessons and real life. We want them to see the value of our subjects in life outside of our classroom walls. But as we know, it can be challenging for our students to get some experiences based on the restrictions of time and space such as the A/B block schedule.

So what did Ms. +Cecilia Garcia do?

Facetime.

Ms. Garcia took a simple feature available on all of our iPads and laptops and used it to access her cousin and police officer Lucia Carranza in Corpus Christi, Texas as part of her Law and the Individual course. Ms. Garcia simply arranged a time to call Officer Carranza through her laptop via Facetime. She then projected her display to the projector screen with AppleTV.

And the questions began.

The students had recently studied a case about miranda rights as they relate to juveniles. As the students were studying the case, questions arose and Ms. Garcia asked her students to write them down and keep them for the Facetime interview. On the day of the interview they were able to ask Officer Carranza about her experiences.

Additionally, the students talked to Officer Carranza about investigations in general, the ins and outs of search warrants, the relationship between police officers and the judicial system, basic elements of criminal law, police brutality, drug busts, working with federal agents & border patrols, and human trafficking. Ms. Garcia’s lesson allowed her students to have their in-class learning come alive as they were able to connect with someone who had real-life experience with all of these topics.

Pretty powerful, right?

Another resource at our disposal for guest speakers (and so much more) is +Skype in the Classroom.

Through Skype, you can access a variety of people around the globe with your students by means of a guest speaker, planning a virtual field trip, or even playing mystery Skype. All of these options give our students the opportunity to see outside the classroom walls...while still inside of them.

Skype is advantageous for those of you interested in doing what Ms. Garcia did in her classroom, but don’t actually know a guest speaker. By using Skype for Education Guest Speakers, you can search for a professional willing to talk to your class about their area of expertise. Check out this video to learn more about it:

Here are some more ideas for using Facetime, Skype, or even Google Hangouts in your classroom:

• Connect with a professional in your subject area for students to learn more about possible careers.
• Connect with another classroom to survey them for data collection on a topic relevant to your material.
• Play Mystery Skype and try to figure out where the other classroom is located.
• Connect with another classroom studying the same topic - for example, meet students who are also reading To Kill a Mockingbird.
• Connect with other classes in our district for study groups.
• Connect with RMHS alumni around the country (and even the world) to learn more about post-RMHS life and the impact they are making on the world.

Interested in learning more about virtual guest speakers? Talk to one of us! Do you like individual attention to learn something new? Schedule an appointment with us! Is there an idea you’d like to see in the blog? Let us know and we’ll work on it!