Growing need
Our office has been a videoconference site for several years now. Funny, a technology that was seen as “just around the corner” back during Expo 67 has finally come to that. I have the stuff, upstairs, just around the corner. In fact, I even have it around the house. Perhaps the time has come.
We use it to allow remote attendance at meetings, to conduct job interviews, to allow sharing of ideas among our consultants. We do everything but allow students to attend classes, and that is probably only a question of time. Today, the administration began consulting on the nuts and bolts of adding a second room for conferencing in our office building. Now, for a technology that is still marginal, that shows a growing need better than anything else.
However, it’s the home that shows the penetration of this technology. My wife is a teacher with far too much correction of student work to ever be caught up. This evening she remained in her classroom, hours after the students were gone, to display student assignments in a very graphic fashion. She suspended them from the ceiling.
Now, if you think about it, there are many ways to get things above your head. If you aren’t too short, you can reach up (forget that possibility). You can use a long pole. You can float stuff up using helium balloons, but that tends to be impractical. And, of course, you can borrow a really long ladder from the janitorial team and drag it back and forth while climbing regularly.
So, how does the video part come into this otherwise mundane task? Simple; in a school that is otherwise empty at that time of day, you turn on a videoconference with home and let someone “spot” you virtually. If you fall, the ambulance will come along, eventually. At least, earlier than if you wait for classes to restart the next week.
We ran a videoconference on a Friday evening so that I could watch my spouse climb a ladder, over and over. That’s a new use for a new tool.
