My Gripe with Skype

With each new evolutionary step of the internet, there is another new revolutionary tool that is developed that is changing the way we communicate. Enter Skype, the new tool that is capable of revolutionizing classrooms due to its free video conferencing abilities. By allowing people to communicate without actually being in the same room, Skype is able to increase efficiency and eliminate unnecessary travel costs. This could particularly be effective in a large lecture classroom setting because a teacher could teach multiple lectures at one time. Although lecture halls are limited by the number of students they can seat, Skype could allow a professor to broadcast his or her lecture across multiple rooms at the same time. By removing the physical walls that bind the teacher to the classroom, a teacher is no longer restricted to just one lecture at a time; he or she can teach all three of his or her sections at once, rather than having to teach one lecture every two hours.

Although Skype is effective in a large classroom setting, it has its drawbacks in smaller classroom settings. Whereas in large lecture halls, there is minimal student-teacher interaction, smaller classrooms thrive on the ability for students to be able to interact with the teacher. If a teacher is present in the classroom, then the student will be able to pick up on key auditory and visual cues provided by the teacher, however many of these cues may not be picked up on Skype. This is primarily due to Skype’s unreliability and dependence on a working internet connection. As we witnessed in class on Thursday, there were several times where the screen froze up, which led to wasted time trying to fix it. In addition, communication over Skype depends on a microphone, so the only way that each student would be able to interact with the teacher would be if each student had his or own microphone. Although this could be solved by distributing a microphone and a webcam to each student in the class, it is not very cost effective, and it would be much easier for the teacher to just be present in the classroom. Another limitation presented by Skype is the lack of eye contact. Eye contact is a crucial skill for face to face communication, and if the student cannot tell if the teacher is specifically looking at him or her, or vise versa, then it is difficult to tell if the other person is actually paying attention. The teacher could easily be looking at something else on his or her computer screen rather than paying attention to the class, and the students would not even know. Due to the limitations presented by Skype within a small classroom setting, students receive much less personal attention, thus hindering the overall learning experience rather than improving it.