Today my 8th grade American history classes in Liberty, Missouri participated in a live video chat with Pat Hughes, author of Guerrilla Season. Guerrilla Season is a book with a focus on Clay County (the county in which we live) in the years just before the Civil War. We used G-mail video chat - free - to visit with Pat from her home in Philadelphia.
I also used a Flip cam to record the conversation for students who missed it and wanted to watch it. Pat spoke with us from her sun room and then took us upstairs to show us her office and shared some of the resources she uses to write books about Civil War era Missouri.
Pretty amazing that this all took place today with no technical glitches at all and we were able to have a great conversation with an author 1,200 miles away! Why aren't classrooms doing more of this?