The fifth-grader’s heart began racing long before he sat in the wooden chair  in front of the computer.

Like most people, Thomas Oblazny put public speaking up there on the list with going to the dentist in terms of things he least likes to do. But Thomas is a trooper, so he took a deep breath and began recounting some of the facts about humpback whales.

“Humpback whales swim to Alaska in the summer and they swim to Hawaii and Mexico in the winter,” Thomas said rather matter-of-factly. “And female humpback whale milk is 50 percent water.”

But the Glen Oaks’ fifth-grader wasn’t just sharing information about humpback whales with his classmates in Christine Pulgar’s classroom. He was sharing his report with his peers in Katrina Bromann’s fifth-grade classroom in Oak Ridge School in neighboring Palos Hills.

It could have been across the continent. But it was just across town.

The process was all part of a new visual communications device called ‘Skype,’ which allows people to interact both visually and verbally with people across the world via computer. It’s one of the 21st Century learning tools used in District 117.

On this day, the computer program was being used to share book reports among the students at the two schools.

Pulgar said Skype not only helps students become more comfortable with computers, but also assists them with public speaking.

Fifth-grader John Constant shared his report on orangutans and mentioned how the arboreal apes grow beards and build nests in which they eat, sleep and play.

Enis Dissi shared how baboons eat fruit, nuts and grass. But, Enis said, they also eat birds, impalas and gazelles.