When Silvia Tolisano, an elementary school teacher in Jacksonville, Fla., traveled on a global studies trip to Peru a few years ago she took her students with her. Virtually.

She carried a laptop and connected with her class through Skype, the free software that allows individuals and businesses to make video and voice calls over the computer. Through her webcam, her students got a glimpse of the view from her hotel room window — the mountains in the Sacred Valley of the Incas.

The field trip was one of Tolisano’s early experiments with Skype in the classroom. Now a 21st century learning specialist at the Martin J. Gottlieb Day School, she is actively promoting the software as a learning tool.

In January 2009, Tolisano embarked on an ambitious project called “Around the World With 80 Schools” through which she sought to connect her students with schools around the globe. “It started off as a way of showing kids that there is a world out there,” says Tolisano. “There is a wow factor when you actually see someone from another country.”

Students at the Martin J. Gottlieb School in Jacksonville, Fla., Skype with a class in New Zealand. (Photo courtesy of Silvia Tolisano)

Within weeks, 80 schools from New Zealand and Thailand to Israel and Canada signed up to Skype with her class. Over 300 schools have signed up to connect with the Jewish day school over the past year, as more and more teachers are beginning to discover the enhanced, interactive learning experience that Skype’s free videoconferencing enables. Tolisano’s class is currently making its 45th connection and the experiment, she says, has worked wonders so far.

The adoption of Skype in the classroom is emblematic of the shift toward 21st century teaching methods that use technology to encourage interactive and collaborative learning. This differs from the traditional methods of teaching that involved one-sided instruction and a focus on the textbook. An analysis of controlled studies by the U.S. Department of Education in June 2009 found that “blended” instruction that combined online and face-to-face instruction had a larger advantage than pure online or face-to-face communication.

Teachers using Skype’s videoconferencing argue that students are learning not just digital and communication skills, which are essential in the work force, but are also developing a better understanding of different cultures and practices, which is equally important in a globalized world.

Chrissy Hellyer, a fifth-grade teacher from New Zealand who now teaches at an international school in Thailand, was among the first to connect with Tolisano’s class. Hellyer’s class in New Zealand connected with students in California to help explain the differences between the Northern and Southern Hemisphere. “We filmed how the toilet flushes differently here. It took all of 15 minutes and the kids felt empowered because they were teaching other students,” says Hellyer. “Students need to realize that we are all responsible for each other’s learning.”

Tolisano believes that Skype conference calls can be used as a teaching tool across grades and subjects. “We had a teacher talking about killer whales in class. In minutes we were able to track down someone in Canada who was able to explain what killer whales were,” she says. “Another time, we were discussing the Albuquerque balloon festival and called a student’s aunt over Skype who attended the festival to ask her about it.”

Yet some parents are skeptical of technology in the classroom; their children spend too much time online as it is.  But Tolisano insists that these calls are not about learning technology alone, because during these video calls, students are expected to do different jobs. Some prepare to present or ask questions of their online guests such as what the time difference is or what the weather is like. Other students film and photograph the conversation, while still others listen and write about the call. “It is not about using the webcam alone,” says Tolisano. “ It is about communication and presentation skills.”

Programs such as “Skype an Author” have also grown out of the Skype movement. Schools normally invite authors to visit students and discuss their books. But it can be quite expensive, as they would have to pay for the transportation costs and accommodation of the guest. Most schools can afford to arrange such visits only once or twice a year.

Sarah Chauncey, library media specialist at the Grand View Elementary School in Rockland County, N.Y., and children’s book author Mona Kerby launched “Skype an Author” two years ago as a way of connecting students to authors at virtually no cost. They created a template where authors could sign up to visit schools over Skype and answer questions about their books. The author videoconferences with the class over Skype for about 10 minutes, free of charge. For longer sessions, they could choose to charge a fee.

These virtual visits are no strain on a school’s budget and Chauncey believes that students really benefit from the more frequent interactions. “To see an author even for 10 minutes before beginning to read a book is a real incentive for the kids to kick off their reading,” says Chauncey.

Integrating technology into the classroom usually involves a significant investment, but all that is really required for a class to Skype is an Internet connection, a computer, one webcam, which can cost as low as $20, and an overhead projector. Yet Skype is blocked in several schools because of fears that it hogs bandwidth and can breach security.

Most schools districts in the U.S. have Internet connections that can handle a Skype videoconference. However, a system with a high-speed Internet connection that runs Skype all day could become a “supernode,” which means it could end up handling voice calls other than those originating from and to the local user. So tech departments tend to be wary of Skype’s bandwidth usage.

The other concern that is universal to all peer-to-peer applications is security breaches that could happen through file transfers. Then there are fears that strangers could contact students over Skype and other such applications.

Wesley Fryer, a digital learning consultant and a former director of education advocacy for AT&T, says that these issues can be managed and that undue fear is preventing students from accessing the experience of collaborative learning. According to Fryer, a smartly managed network could overcome a lot of these issues. “It is possible to control how much bandwidth is used. You could set limits on the amount of bandwidth used in a videoconference,” says Fryer, who suggests logging out of Skype when it is not in use. “You can also limit access to only teachers or to only certain places.”

Fryer points to school systems like Deer Creek in Edmond, Okla., that have learned to use Skype effectively by working around these issues. Toni Jones, in charge of instructional technology at the school, says her classes Skype with partner schools at arranged times and know that they are speaking to legitimate schools. According to Jones, schools that block such sites are “just not in the 21st century learning environment.” She believes that the technology department is often not able to understand the needs of the teachers, as technicians tend to come from backgrounds outside of education.

“The technology department looks at things differently from teachers. You need to get the superintendent on board,” says Fryer. “We want to be creative. But that takes leadership.”