<p>My D will be going off to school in the fall and I am hoping to skype with her. We are also planning on setting up the Grandparents on skype. Any advice on the best sites, cameras (for pc’s) and any info that I should be wondering about but don’t know to ask :)</p>
<p>Thanks</p>
<p>Its really quite easy and doesn’t require any expensive equipment. All I added to my existing desktop was a $20 webcam that sits atop my monitor and ‘aims’ at whoever is sitting at the chair. She has a webcam built in to her MAC. It cost nothing to set up the skype account.</p>
<p>As long as both you and your daughter are on-line and signed into your skype accounts, you ‘call’ by choosing the name off your contact list. </p>
<p>My D and I chat all the time on skype. She’ll send me a text to set up a time to be on-line together.</p>
<p>thanks, can you tell me which “skype” site do you use?</p>
<p>You don’t need to choose a site. Just go to Skype’s own. Probably Skype.com, but you can google it. Skype is great.</p>
<p>OP, we loved skype when our DS was studying abroad. I opened my laptop, skyped DS and made dinner in my kitchen. DH sat in his easy chair in the great room, adjoining the kitchen and the 3 of us talked about our day. The microphone was good enough to chat from a distance, didn’t have to be right on top of the computer to be heard.</p>
<p>He was 6 hours ahead of us and would often be winding up his schoolwork, etc and readying himself for bed. A few times, I helped edit a paper via skype. We just loved being able to stay in touch! I honestly felt like we were having dinner together!</p>
<p>DS often excused himself to run down to the laundry to retrieve his wash, etc or I’d do the same. It was awesome! Both our computers have cameras built in, so that wasn’t an issue. </p>
<p>Just go to Best Buy and pick up a $20.00 camera and afix it to your computer–it’s not a detailed process. </p>
<p>You simply log onto Skype and see if DD’s online, and most college kids are ALWAYS online. if she is, simply click on the green phone icon on your list of contacts and ‘ring’ her up. If she’s skyping somebody else, she can type in a message for you and call you back. You can leave her a typed message on skype which she can read when she does go online. </p>
<p>Just ‘reduce’ the skype page and continue to use the compute (or not) as you normally would–check email, surf the net, whatever–when she calls you’ll hear the ring/calling tone and you can chat away!. DS occasionally skyped me at work and, if convenient, we’d chat. If not we’d wait until later. I’m hoping you have a laptop to allow for flexibility of movement. I’d carry my laptop around the house while chatting with him. The best part of skyping is that it can be so spontaneous. </p>
<p>It really made me/us feel closer to DS while he was so far away and let us vicariously participate in his experiences abroad He gave us a ‘tour’ of his dorm room and showed us his ‘view’. Lots of fun for the parents who where back home! He also used it to stay in touch with happenings at his fraternity and friends back on campus.</p>
<p>Another nice feature of Skype is that international calls are very inexpensive. If you aren’t online, DS can call you using her computer and your phone, landline or cell phone. Or if she chooses to call those who don’t have Skype, the calls are much cheaper than calling with a calling card, etc…While she’s out and about, she can pop into an internet cafe and call you, using the video feature or call you on your cell when you are out and about…All she needs is an internet connnection.</p>
<p>Best of luck to you and your DD!</p>
<p>Thank you panhandlegal.</p>
<p>Skype on the iPad is great! We only do voice with my iPad and our daughter says the quality is way better than when we use our computer.</p>
<p>You can also install Skype on your cell phone. I use Skype on my cell phone and on my laptop.</p>
<p>I prefer an external webcam like this one:</p>
<p>[Amazon.com:</a> Logitech HD Pro Webcam C910: Electronics](<a href=“http://www.amazon.com/Logitech-HD-Pro-Webcam-C910/dp/B003M2YT96/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1327366638&sr=8-3]Amazon.com:”>http://www.amazon.com/Logitech-HD-Pro-Webcam-C910/dp/B003M2YT96/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1327366638&sr=8-3) </p>
<p>Around $65</p>
<p>It’s great. It has high resolution and it allows you to angle your view anyway you want, not just showing your face. You can show the view around the room, on the street, or a page from a book … by just aiming the webcam like a camcorder.</p>
<p>Don’t get your expectations too high. You might envision Skyping quite frequently but may discover your student doesn’t want to do it quite as frequently. It can also be awkward in a dorm environment - i.e. having a camera open while in the tight quarters of a dorm room could be invasive to the roomies.</p>
<p>Technically Skype is easy to use. Your kid’s laptop might already have a webcam built-in.</p>
<p>I just installed Skype for infrequent use - is there any downside in leaving it open all the time in case someone calls? Does it use much memory?</p>
<p>We schedule a once a week skype call with our first year son on Sunday’s. Putting the expectation on once a week works out great and we usually talk about 30-45minutes with everyone in the family passing around the computer. His roommate and hallmates will wave or say hello sometimes. It’s really nbd. We never randomly ring him, although we do see that he’s online. We always text him or message him first to ask if it’s a good time. If he wants more privacy he can ask to wait a couple of hours until his roommate is busy elsewhere. He will text or call during the week sometimes, but the once a week skype call is very nice at keeping us all connected.</p>
<p>We set all the grandparents as well. The only advise I would offer there is to remind them of college kids schedules being vastly different (ie calling in the morning is not great), and it would be a good idea to message before they actually call to see if it’s a good time.</p>