Avi

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Long-distance author visits

Avi Skype visitThe first time I vis­it­ed with my read­ers in schools was in 1970. I actu­al­ly can remem­ber that time in Roo­sevelt, New Jer­sey. My first book had just come out, Things that Some­times Hap­pen.

Since then I’ve vis­it­ed hun­dreds of schools. While I still do such vis­its from time to time (a bunch last week) and enjoy them great­ly, more often I’ve been doing Skype vis­its. Not the small­est rea­son for these elec­tron­ic vis­its has to do with mon­ey and time. It’s expen­sive to bring and pay an author to vis­it, and these days’ schools don’t have a lot of mon­ey for such events. More­over, even a one-day vis­it morphs into a three-day stint when you include the trav­el. In con­trast, a Skype vis­it costs very lit­tle, and no trav­el time is involved. Indeed, I can go to places I nev­er could go, such as a one-room school house (three stu­dents!) on an island off the coast of Alas­ka, a small min­ing com­mu­ni­ty in Ida­ho, or a school in Honduras.

But what real­ly makes a Skype vis­it work is the class-room teacher. Teach­ers who set these up are enthu­si­as­tic, focused, and eager to get their stu­dents—all students—involved. Yes, there are things to learn, the basic tech­nol­o­gy, work­ing with a video cam­era, deal­ing with tech­ni­cal glitch­es (which now and again occur). 

At their best, these vis­its are relaxed, fun for stu­dents and fun for me. But now you’ll have to excuse me. I have to speak to some read­ers in Mississippi.

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