With so many award-winning 2.0 applications that were available, it was difficult to nail down one. Especially when it comes to education. But in the end, I had to go with Skype. I've been a fan, advocate and supporter of this VOIP (voice-over internet protocol) program from its humble beginnings in 2003. It put the traditional telecommunication carriers that had dominated the real time, person-to-person and video conferencing communication market on the defensive, changing they way they did business. It still does, even with Microsoft purchasing the program in 2011, primarily because its voice and video services are free (not counting data usage charge/internet subscription costs or international via mobile). One of the remarkable things about the program is how it is kept up with mobile technology. No longer designated for computers alone, a larger and larger number of its 35 million simultaneous users at any given time are putting the software to work on their smartphones. Regarding education, Skype can be effectively utilized in the schools and classrooms. Students can communicate with other students in various parts of the country or world, and teachers/faculty can collaborate in real-time with each other, all it no or very little cost. It has enormous potential as a global education tool and can be used to facilitate language exchange. Besides occasional outages and downtimes, there is very little I don't like about the resource.
I completely agree with you. I use Skype pretty often to talk to deployed family members and its truly amazing. I think your idea of students using it to talk to other kids in different parts of the country/world is wonderful, it would be like having a video pen pal.
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