Hello everyone.  It has been forever and a day since I last posted on here.  Not my intent, but it seems that every time I am able to post, something interrupts me.

I would like to start a discussion on how teachers are able to bring in outside resources into their classrooms.  I'll give my example and we can expand on that or if someone has a different example, we can discuss that, too.

In my classroom this year, we are making use of Skype to hold video-conferences with experts from around the country.  In October, we had a conference with Brandon Copeland from Project VoteSmart in Montana to discuss the upcoming election.  We have another coming up in February in which we are discussing the Supreme Court with a law student.

These sessions have been extremely helpful because it brings an outside voice into the classroom.  For the session with Project VoteSmart, we spent the class prior to the conference developing questions for our guest.  I typed the questions and distributed them to the students.  During the conference, I would then call on different students to ask a question.

The setup for this conference was pretty simple.  I have a webcam on top of my smartboard.  We project the video feed onto the whiteboard so the kids are looking at the guest and vice versa.  I held a practice call the day before to check for any tech glitches on either end.

Has anyone else tried this?  What has been your experience?  OR Do you do something else to bring in outside experts into your class?  What process do you go through?

Looking forward to your responses.  Thanks in advance!!