Wouldn’t it be great to invite authors into your classroom or library to video chat with students before, during, and/or after you’ve read their books? We are growing a list of authors who want to make that connection with you.

The technology is free and (in many schools) ubiquitous. The learning curve is anything but steep.  Oprah made it truly mainstream.  And informally, many of us have already been using the magic of Skype videoconferencing to bring experts and authors and other exciting visitors right into our classrooms and libraries to create experiences learners do not forget.

So, the Skype an Author Network was an idea just begging to happen.  And Sarah Chauncey and Mona Kirby made it happen about three months ago, radically simplifying the challenge–and perhaps also decreasing the cost–of a personal author visit.

Skype an Author allows us to connect with children’s and young adult authors willing to visit schools via Skype.  Teachers and/or librarians may arrange visits from network authors via email or phone. 

Authors registered on the network offer two types of visits:

• No Charge – Meet the Author Visit – 10 to 15 minutes
• In-Depth Visit – 30-60 Minutes – Charge to be determined by author

Mona and Sarah note that these teleconference visits would not necessarily replace the face-to-face experience, they may make an excellent first meeting with authors who are invited to schools to make in-person presentations. 

I asked Sarah how the whole thing started. 

The idea for Skype an Author started with Mona Kerby’s book, Owney the Mail Pouch Pooch.   We were reading books about letter-writing and launching a school post office. The goal was to have children engage in traditional letter writing and "email" letter writing. Mona’s book was perfect for sharing historical information ont the US Postal System. Mona did a "real" visit to Grandview in 2008. She met with the 3rd grade classes and the children loved her presentation.

The PTA purchased the book for every 3rd grader.

This year, I shared the book with our 2nd grade classes, but I knew that we couldn’t afford to bring Mona in again. I’ve been Skyping for a while, so I thought — Why not have her "visit" via Skype and project her on our SmartBoard?  Mona was enthusiastic about the idea so we did a couple of practice runs to prepare. We scheduled a time and three classes of 2nd graders scrunched into our library meeting area. Mona visited from her home office — dog and all!  After her talk, several children took turns asking questions they had prepared.  (Questions were reviewed, edited, and children had been selected in advance.)  Our principal, assistant principal, and 2nd grade teachers were in the audience as well. The presentation was so successful – cheers, clapping etc.

After that visit, it was clear that Skyping authors into the library was a way to enjoy more than one author visit a year.  How would we find other authors who were willing to present this way?  Mona and I spoke about her presentation and decided that we should build a list of authors — and why not share that list with other librarians and teachers. A Wiki was a perfect tool to house the list. Mona initiated the discussion with authors she knew, contacted her publisher, and I got busy setting up the Wiki. I wanted the entries to be consistent and didn’t have time to do all the work … so we came up with a process for authors to join and maintain their own pages.  It takes only a few minutes on our end to create the page and invite the author to update. The authors insert pictures of book covers, their own pics etc. 

As of this writing, we have approximately eighty authors, with more joining as the word spreads via Twitter etc.

Sarah and Mona welcome children’s and young adult authors to join the Skype an Author.  Let’s help get the word out and build this network!

Please email any questions to: sachauncey@gmail.com or rkerby@mcdaniel.edu

 

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This entry was posted on Saturday, July 11th, 2009 at 7:43 am and is filed under Uncategorized . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.