Video chat services have become a part of mainstream education from college to preschool.

ooVoo, a New York-based company that provides a high-quality video-driven communication service to anyone with a computer, broadband connection and a Web camera has turned out to be an affordable resource in elementary, secondary and higher education and a valued teaching tool, in particular for families of pre-school children and school-aged kids.

“Today students, teachers, parents and grandparents are embracing the video chat trend and seeing the benefit of video-driven communications delivered anywhere, anytime,” ooVoo CEO Philippe Schwartz (News - Alert), said. “ooVoo has successfully helped many businesses reduce travel costs and contribute to better work-life balance for employees. Now more and more educators are using online video chat to experience the advantages of connecting face-to-face through ooVoo.”

The adoption of ooVoo as an educational tool, on college campuses around the country, allows students to work on complex projects outside the classroom, exchange ideas and contact professors holding virtual office hours over ooVoo.

ooVoo was recently implemented by Associate Professor Star Swift (News - Alert)from Grand Valley State University in Allendale, Mich. in a law class to teach students how to use web video conferencing for dispute resolution processes such as mediation, collective bargaining and negotiations.

Assistant Professor of Michigan State University School of Labor & Industrial Relations in East Lansing, Mich., Janice Molloy, started using ooVoo to hold office hours. She now requires it for one of her classes.

“We wanted to find out whether a collaborative technology such as ooVoo could be used effectively as a learning tool in legal education,” Swift said. “Eighty-eight percent of our students found that using video chat made the course work ‘less difficult’ and that using ooVoo benefited students by reducing travel time and making collaboration easier between class teammates with conflicting schedules.”

To strengthen family relationships and help teach their children to read, ooVoo is also being by used by parents and grandparents. A communication tool to allow children and their families to read together in real-time over the Internet is being pioneered by Readeo, a Chicago-based company founded in 2009. To combine high-quality video chat with digital books from top children's book publishers, the company has integrated ooVoo with a BookChat product.

“For us, the whole point of using video chat was to create a learning experience that allows families to see and hear each other as they build relationships reading together online just as if they were in the same room together,” CEO Coby Neuenschwander, noted. “ooVoo has exceeded our expectations with high quality, affordable technology that helps children, parents and grandparents experience the joys of reading while they build a strong family bond.”

In related news, ooVoo has released its December usage report which reveals a significant increase in traffic last month which is indicative of changing consumer behavior in the communications category.

Deepika Mala is a contributing editor for TMCnet. To read more of her articles, please visit her columnist page.

Edited by Alice Straight