Adventures By Design

[caption id="attachment_1026" align="aligncenter" width="397" caption="Star Trek viewscreen (notice the eye-to-eye contact? How do they do that?)"][/caption]

Talking to my mother on Skype is wonderful for how is diminishes the distance between us. I look forward to the time when Skype has become such a normalized part of our communication, that we don’t have to go through that “is it on?” stage, followed by the “wow! this is so cool” stage, and instead we can just fire up Skype and get on with the conversation. I can imagine a time when just like Captain Kirk, mom and I can chat with the same natural familiarity of sitting in the same room (did Kirk ever simply chat? Conversed? Yes. Discussed? Often. But chat… I don’t think so.).

We’ll get there, but there’s a limitation with webcams that annoys me: my mom and I cannot see eye-to-eye. Ha, ha. No really, we cannot simultaneously look into each other’s eyes. If my mom is looking at the Skype image of me, the picture I see of her is with her eyes downcast. And similarly, if I am looking at her on the screen, the image of me has my eyes looking down too. The reason for this is because the web camera is mounted above our monitors, but the image we see of our dear loved ones is several inches below that. This is something like parallax error in a If I want my mom to see me looking directly at her, I have to stare at the webcam on the top of my monitor. From her point of view, I will now be looking her in the eye, however, I won’t be able to see her image, except in my peripheral vision. The subtle yet annoying result is that I feel my mom and I aren’t connecting as naturally as we would face-to-face. It’s like trying to have a conversation with someone who will only focus on your chin.

So, this problem has been bouncing around in my head for a week or so and I think I have a solution: prosthetic eye webcams. Well, ok, maybe that won’t work for everyone (unless you are willing to give up an eye). No, my solution is more low tech.

Using my mom and me as an example, if I could position my webcam in the same location as my mom’s eyes, then it would look natural to her when I looked at her face as she was speaking. If I position my monitor so it is facing away from me, then place a signal mirror in front of it, when I look in the mirror, I see the monitor screen. A signal mirror has a hole in it; place a webcam in this hole and aim it at myself. Now start up Skype, call my mom, and adjust the camera so it is roughly between her eyes. That’s it. When mom looks at her screen, she’ll see me looking at her eyes. Of course, mom would have to do the same set up with her computer, so it would look natural for me too.

So, have I done it yet? Nope, not yet. But I think it would work.

Note: In searching for images for this post, I discovered that several businesses already identified and addressed this problem (here and here). Like many of my (ahem) brilliant ideas (such as solar panel shingles), other people have had the same, and usually better, ideas. So, there goes my career as in inventor. But, at least I got the mental challenge of figuring it out, and really, that’s the best part.

We think we’ve installed a plugin that will allow Wordpress and Facebook to talk to each other. Now, whenever we write on the blog it should show up in Facebook too (but just Gin’s account).

We’re not sure if it is actually working, so if this looks ugly or doesn’t work, sorry.

Yesterday, I continued our redesign (or at least revision) of our blog. There are a bunch of things I want to change, although I’m not sure when I’ll have the time to do so. I wonder if this sudden need to make our blog more user family-friendly is just an online version of the fabled Nesting Instinct.

Today I sent out this invitation to a select group of people to visit my blog.

Hi Mom, Janet, Marcel, Patty, Trent, and Nathan. A little while ago I started an online journal, or blog, about my life living in Seoul, and teaching overseas. So far I haven’t invited anyone to look at it (not even Gin), but then it occurred to me that it might be a good way to stay in touch and feel connected to people. My mom seems interested in whatever is happening in my life, and Janet, Marcel and I had fun blogging together a couple years ago. As both an experienced teacher and my aunt, Patty has helped me with advice in the past. Nathan and Trent are relatively young teachers, and I value their insight and perspective on teaching (and life in general).

So, I invite you to come check out my blog and maybe even leave a comment or two. http://lamonte-bird.com/blog/

Thanks,
Richard

I would love if they stopped by regularly, but I don’t really expect them to. Really, is my life that interesting? It doesn’t seem so. Maybe when we leave Korea and start a new adventure somewhere else, or when we travel to some far-off country like Mongolia again, things will seem more worthy of note.

But wait. Actually, if I reversed the situation, ya I think I would like to learn about my friends and family’s lives. Did you know that Janet has an online business selling dyed wool batts? (Not to be confused with died whole bats) So, for Mom, Janet, Marcel, Patty, Trent, and Nathan, if you want to, I’ll help you set up your own blog. You might already have one, who knows? Janet did, but it seems to be dead now. Trent, make a blog of all the new things Quynne does. Nathan, join me in reflecting on teaching and learning and stuff, and make our professors proud.

Thinking of you all!

Richard

Comment Pres… hmm… something to come back to:

http://edublogs.org/2007/10/19/commentpress-comes-to-edublogs/

If I could redo this year, I would have a more structured approach to journal writing. Looking back, I realize that I should have had a schedule where we write regularly. Not only would this give my students something to look forward to, but it would also give me more opportunities to assess their strengths and weaknesses.