Skype is a free (for most purposes) service that learning providers and their practitioners are using to connect stakeholders across the town/city/region/country/globe. It's not surprising therefore that an increasing number of learning providers are using Skype for..

• Learner /Employer/Stakeholder Voice;

• Remote assessments - Job Knowledge Questions/Interviews, ITQ & other ICT/IT observations etc.;

• Delivery of "course elements" to learners based over a large area;

...and so much m...

Yet another reason, perhaps, that YouTube and Facebook shouldn't be blocked!

The YouTube Social website lets practitioners and remote learners watch YouTube in a truly collective way.

On the YouTube Social website...

• practitioners can create "viewing parties" by merely adding the word "social" to any YouTube URL that they want to watch with their learners...
• Upon doing so, a new URL is generated, and...
• this URL can then be sent to invite learners to the "viewing party".

When invited le...

Skype has released a Beta update for Windows. The second beta of Skype 5.0 brings a number of changes both outside and in – most importantly, users can now make group video calls with up to 10 people.

It also welcomes in a fresh new look, as well as increased stability and better quality when making group video calls.

Note: everyone in a group video call now needs to be running this new version, so if learners, colleagues, friends or family are using other versions, they'll have to up...

With VanityVid's Browser plugin, those who use Facebook and or Twitter can make their profile picture come alive.

Provide short video clips/thoughts for the day etc., where visitors will, with the FireFox Browser add-in, also be able to see you move and hear you talking, and get a better feeling of who you are and what you're like.

The add-on is available from https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/162157/ (this will allow you to see those Facebook and Twitter users who use Van...

Synchtube is a new web-service for watching video clips and chatting about them at the same time.

Just...

• find the url of an appropriate YouTube video,
• copy that url into Synchtube, and
• begin chatting with your colleagues/learners/etc., while the video is playing.

Users can comment on the video and share thoughts inspired by the video while watching. At the moment Synchtube is in beta and currently only four people can chat at once; hopefully that limit will be increased in the future....