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Nov. 10th, 2012
We live in the future
Nov. 10th, 2012 07:23 pmSo here's what I did this morning:
Got on Elluminate and joined a web conference with teachers, social workers, and students from Bonaire, Uruguay, Kenya, Egypt, Uganda, Brazil, and the U.S. Teams of students in the first four countries are collaborating on a film about domestic violence, and were pitching the idea to the rest of us. They wrote a story about a girl whose boyfriend is abusing her, repeating the pattern set by her parents' abusive marriage. Their concept is that they'll film the whole story, using the same storyboard, in each country (obviously with different actors playing the same characters) and put it together in editing so that it switches between the different settings.
It was very cool. The Bonaire team ran into difficulties with their internet connection and had to go to a friend's house to get into the conference, and we could barely hear the Kenya team (and they had a hard time understanding the woman from Uruguay who only spoke Spanish), but the kids did an awesome job of getting their ideas across and everyone was very excited and enthusiastic about the project. I think we gave them some good critique as well.
What is really staggering to me, because I'm old, is that I can instantaneously, and for free, get on the computer and speak to someone in Africa. I remember the days of land lines and long distance calls and being jealous that, one town south of me, you could call Toronto for free but our town couldn't. Here I am, now able to have a conference call (it could have been video if not for the lag and confusion), toss scripts around, and dick around on paint-chat with people on the other side of the world.
This is what the interface looks like, with kid-doodles. At least I think these are kid-doodles. They may be adult-doodles, come to think of it.
Not to be all "golly gee, isn't technology awesome?" but this is seriously some Star Trek shit right here. Sometimes my job is really cool.
Got on Elluminate and joined a web conference with teachers, social workers, and students from Bonaire, Uruguay, Kenya, Egypt, Uganda, Brazil, and the U.S. Teams of students in the first four countries are collaborating on a film about domestic violence, and were pitching the idea to the rest of us. They wrote a story about a girl whose boyfriend is abusing her, repeating the pattern set by her parents' abusive marriage. Their concept is that they'll film the whole story, using the same storyboard, in each country (obviously with different actors playing the same characters) and put it together in editing so that it switches between the different settings.
It was very cool. The Bonaire team ran into difficulties with their internet connection and had to go to a friend's house to get into the conference, and we could barely hear the Kenya team (and they had a hard time understanding the woman from Uruguay who only spoke Spanish), but the kids did an awesome job of getting their ideas across and everyone was very excited and enthusiastic about the project. I think we gave them some good critique as well.
What is really staggering to me, because I'm old, is that I can instantaneously, and for free, get on the computer and speak to someone in Africa. I remember the days of land lines and long distance calls and being jealous that, one town south of me, you could call Toronto for free but our town couldn't. Here I am, now able to have a conference call (it could have been video if not for the lag and confusion), toss scripts around, and dick around on paint-chat with people on the other side of the world.
This is what the interface looks like, with kid-doodles. At least I think these are kid-doodles. They may be adult-doodles, come to think of it.
Not to be all "golly gee, isn't technology awesome?" but this is seriously some Star Trek shit right here. Sometimes my job is really cool.