<p>So today, one of my high school teachers threw his back out. Since he hates leaving the class with substitutes (our subs are useless), he sat at his computer at home and Skyped with us! He could see the entire class, the class could see him and he taught. Some kids tried to act up but he called them out and made them settle down. The experiment went surprisingly well!</p>
<p>I thought this was just about the coolest thing ever. So what cool technology do your kids have in the classroom?</p>
<p>It sounds way better than the typical sub who often really end up just babysitting. The main thing would be for the teachers to not abuse it and stay home when they shouldn’t or to use it when they should really be sleeping to get over an illness. It sounds perfect for this situation though.</p>
<p>Was there an actual adult in the room? There are laws about students being unsupervised – not sure Skype does it. But it sounds brilliant in terms of someone who can’t get to school but can teach being able to cover the class.</p>
<p>I’m sure there was a sub supervising physically in the room.</p>
<p>As for technology, my high school English students use a Ning social network that I created and the school’s wiki to collaborate.</p>
<p>A sub was there physically babysitting. With AP tests a month away and us being slightly behind, the teacher didn’t want to lose a single day of teaching time so he Skyped in.</p>