Skype Conference Call 26/8/09

I participated in the 8pm conference call meeting. This began with a small group conversation with Blue Group people including Tyrone and James. The connection was clear and we could talk fairly easily. It got confusing because others were trying to call us and we were trying to put each other on hold in order to answer other calls. It took a while for me to work out how to put calls on hold and then retrieve them again without hanging up.

After a short time, Ken asked us to hang up so that we could particpate in the group call. This was a frustrating experience. Sometimes the audio was clear and I could hear and participate in the conversation, particularly at the end when there was only 4 of us online. At other times, there seemed to be a lot of feedback which made it difficult to hear. Most of the time, the audio was very slow and I could not understand a word that was being said. We talked about Facebook and Ken was asking about the new Government initiatives, but I could not understand most of this conversation. I have been to the resources section to find the log but it hasn't been put on yet.

I can see the value in using Skype for conference calls between 2 or 3 people, but I can not see it being suitable for classroom situations with 20 or more people. However, it could be used for contacting an expert about project topics one-on-one, or perhaps conversing with another class at another school through one connection at each end, with students taking it in turns being on the microphone.