Margaret Rubega, who had shifted from requiring students to keep a written weekly journal of bird behavior to using Twitter, marking their observations with the hashtag #birdclass.) (There seems to be an unusual level of enthusiasm for using Twitter in teaching at the University of Connecticut. It started out as a Twitter campaign by McAnulty and others built around the hashtag #skypeascientist. This fast-growing global nonprofit organization facilitates thousands of video connections between scientists anywhere in the world with an internet connection to classrooms, libraries or groups of interested citizens. Given the urgent need to sustain science literacy and trust in such times, I thought it would be worthwhile to check in with a veteran of long-distance science education - Sarah McAnulty, a marine biologist from the University of Connecticut who, in early 2017, co-founded Skype a Scientist. I’m offering free trainings to support you in this work. This can be a scary space for some and I would like to help. The Covid-19 outbreak is resulting in school closures with contingency plans to move toward online learning. Twitter is a hotbed for teachers sharing tips and training options via hashtags like #edtech and #remotelearning, including this one, just as an example, from Mike Flynn ( director of mathematics leadership programs at Mount Holyoke College:

Online learning can be effective and engaging with practice, but the abruptness of the transition now has caught thousands of teachers and institutions off guard.

Facing the spreading pandemic of the coronavirus known as COVID-19, schools around the world at every level, from kindergartens to universities, are racing to shift to teaching online.

Skype a scientist skype tips