NASA and Seven Other Organizations Join Skype in the Classroom to Take Kids on New Educational Adventures

When I was a kid, I had some very big dreams. My imagination would run wild with all the possibilities of answering the question, "What do I want to be when I grow up?" On any given day, I would have given you wildly different answers: I wanted to be a firefighter, an astronaut, a ship captain, a writer, amongst many, many others. One of the reasons I love my job is because Skype in the classroom allows students to experience first-hand what these careers are really like from professionals doing them every day.

In celebration of World Teacher's Day on Friday, we're taking one more step to help make kids' dreams become more of a reality. We're excited to announce that we're adding six fantastic organizations to Skype in the classroom: NASA's Digital Learning Network™, The National Museum of the Royal Navy and HMS Victory, British Council, Woodland Trust, VerbalizeIt, Action Aid, Education through Expedition and Choose2Matter. These organizations will join our many existing affiliates to help enrich the educational experiences of teachers and students worldwide.

Claire Jordan, Learning Officer for the National Museum of the Royal Navy and HMS Victory, said that "Skype provides a brilliant way of making contact with schools all over the world that otherwise wouldn't know that we offer interesting workshops."

"The reach of the Royal Navy is global and there is a real interest in its history throughout the world. However, despite this interest, the geographical constraints mean that the vast majority of schools (even those in Great Britain) will never get a chance to actually visit us. To be able to bring our collections to more people and give the opportunity to learn more about the National Museum of the Royal Navy or HMS Victory via Skype is great."

As one example of how these organizations will participate in Skype in the classroom, NASA's Digital Learning Center will feature various projects where students can learn how to prepare a space vehicle for liftoff, help scientists and engineers to explore the basic principles of matter and design their own spacesuit mission patch. Participating classrooms will also discover what it is like to live and work in space as well as being introduced to basic robotics.

These new organizations will join more than 38,000 teachers already working together on 2,000 live global educational projects. Teachers can take advantage of these valuable resources by signing up for free on the Skype in the classroom website. Once registered, educators will be able to explore the Skype in the classroom collaboration spaces, access a variety of content from these organizations, learn about new and exciting ways to utilize Skype video calling in their schools and connect their students with a global selection of guest experts.

Please visit https://education.skype.com/ for more information.