Lara at TexasHomesteader.com has discovered a neat and ingeious way to use Skype, the free video chat software that lets you talk to anyone on the Internet using a webcam, a computer and a regular Internet connection.  Her daughter Kyra’s harp teacher moved away, and they live in a fairly remote location where it wasn’t easy to find a replacement harp instructor, so she came up with a neat solution. 

I loved this idea. It’s probably the wave of the future in homeschooling. Music teachers can now reach students all over the world for no additional cost. We use Skype to keep in touch with relatives around the world that we can’t see face-to-face very often; Shorty uses it to talk to his dad in Boston every week and it’s been great for that.  The video chat is still not great quality (no matter how good your camera and how good your lighting, you will still look consumptive and sleep-deprived) but it’s vastly improved in the last couple of years, and the sound is about as good as a phone call.  I’ve been trying to get my mom, who lives 45 minutes away, to use Skype more often, too. I’m reminded of The Jetsons and how they thought we’d be viewing each other clear as day on 7-foot-high screens by the 80s. Technology has moved a little slower than that, but i’m thinking homeschoolers can probably make great use of video chat technology to create educational opportunities for themselves and others.  Skype even offers group chats. Virtual co-ops, anyone?

One caveat:  Skype has its cavalry of spammers like any other service and some of them aren’t G-rated. Parents are cautioned to set their children’s account to the highest privacy setting – only allow contact from specific users – and to not allow unsupervised use.  Thanks for the post, Lara!