Skype – Never Leave Home Without It

Two things I will never travel without again: SkypeOut and my SkypeIn number. They have been fabulous things to have.

SkypeOut has been fantastic – the kids I’m here with have been able to ring home and it has been so cheap for them to do so. We had some trouble with mobile phones and international roaming for the first few days, and there are no phones that they kids can just go and use. So, they’ve been able to use Skype to call which they and their parents have appreciated of course. There are two staff here with Skype on their laptops, and two students, so plenty of Skype to go around! All of us have Skype credit too, which is how we pay for these calls.

Many of the parents aren’t too sure what to make of it when their kids tell them they are calling from my computer, but they are just happy to hear from their kids of course. Thankfully we have a reliable internet connection, and so we have a reliable way of calling home that is not expensive.

SkypeIn has been another wonder. I have a number that looks like a landline for people to call me on via Skype. If I don’t answer my Skype, the call is forwarded to my mobile. While I’m here in China I have Chinese mobile number, so I just set Skype to forward calls to that. Parents can call that SkypeIn number and I answer it with my computer if I am sitting in front of it, or if we are out at the time, it comes to my mobile. Fabulous thing about this is that it only costs the person calling that number a local call, not an international one. Sooo cheap to call overseas!

These features are so great particularly at the moment because we have had a few sick kids – two fairly seriously – and these methods of getting in touch have worked really well. The fact that parents can call the SkypeIn number and get me no matter where I am is fantastic. The bonus is that it is all so cheap. You can check the call rates for Skype here.

So, my Skype has had more than it’s fair workout over the past few days. Thank god I’ve got it. I’ll never leave home without it again!

Capturing China with My Mobile Phone

I went for a walk yesterday on my own and did a bit of videoing with the video function on my Nokia E51. Here is the result -

As you can see the quality, although not brilliant, is pretty good and is definitely good enough for my purposes! I am a big fan of uncluttering, and to be able to have a small device in my pocket that makes video and audio recordings, takes photos and calls is great. No need to have several devices weighing down my bag. I can share those out amongst the kids and get them to create stuff too.

Using Ning to Keep in Touch

To keep parents informed of what we are doing while here in Nanjing, I set up the Gariwerd Program ning site. Originally we used it before we left as a place where the kids could get to know each other (they are from 5 different schools) and to ask questions of the staff. The ning was set to private at that stage as it was not being used to share anything other than information that was relevant only to those kids that were preparing for the trip.

Now, though, we are in China and have plenty to share and so I have made the ning public. I made sure there were no surnames used and the kids haven’t listed what schools they are from. I’ve uploaded many videos from our first week here in China to the videos page of the ning. Parents have been watching them and one or two have made comments. We’ve even had a mum and a grandma join the ning to follow the kids along their journey.

Each day here at school we have a access to a computer room. Now that we are settling in to more of a routine after a furious few days of rushing around and getting very tired, the kids will be blogging on the ning site as well. There were a few reasons I didn’t set the kids up with their own individual blogs external to the ning -

  1. parents and other classes would then have to go to several different sites to see what different kids were up to – blogging on the ning site keeps it all in one place
  2. I wasn’t sure what blogging sites were going to be blocked in China and I new that nings weren’t blocked
  3. I wanted to have a place where the kids could connect and read each others blog posts easily. The ning will make a great and easy to access resource for other classes and for the kids while they are here and after they have returned home
  4. It is more collaborative than single blogs, and I really wanted to make sure all the kids voices were heard – and seen!

I know the parents have appreciated being able to see what the kids are doing and once we get them blogging regularly, they will enjoy what the kids are writing too. 6 weeks is a long time to be away, and China is a long way away, so anything that keeps us in touch with home is a good thing – with bonus audio and visual elements!

So, please check out our ning. Follow us on our journey here in China. Check out our videos and see and hear what we are up to. It’s such a pity that video does not pick up smells and we can’t add them to the ning! Well, maybe it’s not… :-)

Taking Technology Away – To China

Of course, being as interested in learning and teaching with technology as I am, I could not possibly go abroad with a bunch of kids and not plan to make the most of it! I have brought with me:

I will buy

I hear you asking what I’m going to do with it all! I plan to:

China – Here We Come!

This blog post finds its way to you from the great country of China – also known as the Middle Kingdom. I’m actually writing this as I sit in seat 36A on China Air flight CA178 from Melbourne to Shanghai. I’m heading to China with 4 other staff and 20 students from 5 different schools in the Grampians region of Western Victoria, Australia. We will be in China for 6 weeks staying at Nanjing Number 1 Middle School in Nanjing. Each of the students have to complete their own research project on a topic they have already begun to prepare. Some of the projects are on these topics -

to name a few! The students have picked some great things to research. Of course they will learning a bit of Chinese along the way too.

Each day we will start with a short Chinese lesson to give the students enough language to get them through the everyday things, and then they will be working on their projects, going to classes and possibly meeting up with some students who will help them with their Chinese.

I just can’t wait to see the expressions on these kids faces when they get to Shanghai! Most of these kids have rural backgrounds, and most of them have never been on a plane before. We went to Melbourne two weeks ago for an official launch of the program and it was for many of them, only the second or third time they had even been to Melbourne. And they’re getting off a plane in Shanghai! This will be fantastic. Join us for the ride!

I’ll be keeping two blogs while we are in China – this one which will focus more on my personal reflections and how I’m using technology with the kids while we are away, and technoChinese which will be more of a diary and will have more detail as to what is happening with the kids on a day to day basis. technoChinese is also the blog my students back at Hawkesdale will be reading.

I am hoping to be uploading photos to Flickr, but that depends on it bing blocked or not. If it is then hopefully Slideshare is working or something else!We’ve been told that we have the use of a computer lab which will be great. I’m hoping to be able to get an internet connection in my room. I’ve brought two computers with me – my MacBook and  little Asus EeePC which I am using right now to write this post into an Open Office.org Writer document. I’ve got my mobile phone (a Nokia E51) which I won’t be using with a Chinese SIM card, but can still use the audio, video and bluetooth functions on. I’ve brought my old phone to be one of the hopefully several mobile phones we have that will work with Chinese SIMs in them. I told the kids they had to get their phones unlocked from their networks, but for some this was too expensive, so we are going to make do with a few old phones that are hopefully no network-locked! See how we go. I’m also doing some of my own research by getting the kids here in China to take photos with their phones and send them to my Year 8 class in Hawkesdale. More on that later.

So, there you go – or there I go really! We’re on our way to China – though, we’ll be there by the time you read this! – and ready for the adventure of a lifetime.

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