Skyping with Awesome Authors!

While I spend a good number of my lunch hours at school Skyping myself out of my classroom to talk with students in other classrooms around the world, I’ve been Skyping some folks into my classroom lately, too!  Last week, as part of our district’s staff development day, I gave a workshop on Web 2.0 tools and literacy.  We talked about class blogs, social reading through Moodle and GoodReads, the joys of professional development through Twitter, and Skype.  Most of the teachers in our department had heard of Skype or used it to talk to relatives but hadn’t used it in the classroom yet.  That changed, though…

David Macinnis Gill, the author of SOUL ENCHILADA and BLACK HOLE SUN, Skyped into our session to talk about how he uses virtual visits to connect with classrooms. He also talked a bit about the world building in BLACK HOLE SUN (which I found to be nothing short of amazing, so I was happy to hear about his methods!). And look who else popped in to visit…

Eric Luper joined us to read a little from his upcoming middle grade novel, JEREMY BENDER VS. THE CUPCAKE CADETS.  Our 6th grade teachers are especially excited about this one since it has such appeal for both boy and girl readers.

Both David and Eric offer free Skype chats with classes and book clubs that have read one of their books, and Eric is also doing an Author Skype Tour for his JEREMY BENDER book launch.

Lest you think the teachers had all the fun…later this week, I’ll post “Skyping with Awesome Authors: Part II” about my creative writing students’ Skype chat with author Jenny Moss.