A Techno-Sceptic Converted (somewhat...)

I'm a techno-sceptic. It's not that I'm afraid of technology (in fact I often have to suppress these urges to buy the next must-have hi-tech toy), I just don't believe that technology is the silver bullet that'll deliver us from the environmental mess we've gotten ourselves into. Worse, I suspect it's partly thanks to technology we're finding ourselves in this current pickle, with not many graceful exits remaining. Even silver bullets kill...

Having said that, I was pleasantly suprised when I stepped into the room I was scheduled to teach our first "Living Off The Grid" evening class at Confederation College. Turns out we had a student (Tom) from Sioux Lookout, a town at about 375km away from the college. A long drive for a 3-hour class...

Buttons, screens, microphones, computers, keyboards - even students!

The solution: the only distance Tom had to travel was to Confederation College's local campus, find the room that was set up for videoconferencing and position himself in front of the screen & camera. He could see & hear us perfectly, we could perfectly see & hear him. And because his image was projected on a big screen it almost felt like he was physically present in the room with the 14 other students.

I like to use a lot of visuals for my classes (hello PowerPoint), and technology helped out again; want Tom to see what the class sees? Just press this button to go from camera (the class) to computer (the visuals), and press again if you want to go back. It worked like a charm and I loved it.

Very cool, very effective and environmentally helpful. Want to experience it for yourself? You still can! There's 3 more classes left (February 6, 17 and 20); just make sure you're somewhere far away from Thunder Bay and sign up. See ya on the big screen!