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Not all the world's a stage
hi-def video will only revolutionize e-learning when students get comfortable on camera

By Lisa Neal / August 2007

TYPE: OPINION
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Does anyone remember Jeane Dixon, whose well-publicized predictions included that President John F. Kennedy would be assassinated? According to Wikipedia, the "Jeane Dixon Effect" is when "people loudly tout a few correct predictions and overlook false predictions." John Chambers, CEO of Cisco Systems, probably makes a lot of predictions, and being even more well-known than Jeane Dixon was in her time, he is often quoted. One of his most widely publicized quotes originally occurred in The New York Times in 1999: "The next big killer application for the Internet is going to be education. Education over the Internet is going to be so big it is going to make e-mail usage look like a rounding error in terms of the Internet capacity it will consume." I don't believe that prediction has come to pass, but that hasn't stopped Chambers from issuing fresh prognostications. His latest is a provocative one that also relates directly to the future of online learning.

Chambers has been touting TelePresence, Cisco's new high-definition video-conferencing technology, as a way for businesses to reduce travel and thus "improve their carbon footprint." Chambers went on to call video the new killer app. Combining his "killer app" predictions (or at least these two—à lá the Jeane Dixon Effect, I suspect these are just two of many), what impact can high-definition video-conferencing have on e-learning?

Long ago, when I piloted the first online course for EDS, I used video-conferencing along with a number of other technologies, including—I know this dates me—the beta version of NetMeeting. EDS had a worldwide videoconferencing network and I took advantage of it to have my students "meet" once a week. My training session consisted of how to initiate multipoint calls, pre-set camera angles, and the like. While I quickly mastered this material, I struggled with how to make my class interactive and engaging. My students liked seeing and hearing me and each other—their feedback was that it made me seem like a "real person" and the class seem like a "real class"—but I soon discovered they didn't like to be on camera themselves.

Perhaps that's why video-conferencing has never achieved the growth predicted for it by analysts (alas, not by Jeane Dixon). Today, certainly more people have webcams than ever before, and more people watch videos online. But does this also reduce their discomfort with being on camera and increase video's potential as a viable communication medium?

I imagine there are a lot of people who want the sense of being in a classroom, complete with classmates and an instructor, but who don't want to travel to a campus. And even though Al Gore may have never been a close confidant of Jeane Dixon, his notion of reducing our carbon footprint may increase the appeal of video-conferencing for educational purposes. But even the most gifted clairvoyant must look beyond what is logical or possible and figure out how to get instructors and students comfortable using this technology adeptly. My prediction—sorry Mr. Chambers—is that video-conferencing will not revolutionize workplace communication or education. There are just not enough people who love to be on camera, notwithstanding Oprah, YouTubers, and most CEOs we know. The rest of us will wait until they perfect teleportation.



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ADDITIONAL READING

    Lisa Neal
  1. Predictions For 2003
  2. Q&A with Diana Laurillard
  3. Do it yourself
  4. Degrees by mail
  5. Predictions for 2004
  6. How to get students to show up and learn
  7. Q&A
  8. Blended conferences
  9. Predictions for 2002
  10. Learning from e-learning
  11. Storytelling at a distance
  12. Q&A with Don Norman
  13. Talk to me
  14. "Spot Learning"
  15. Q&A with Saul Carliner
  16. When will e-learning reach a tipping point?
  17. Online learning and fun
  18. In search of simplicity
  19. eLearning and fun
  20. Everything in moderation
  21. The basics of e-learning
  22. Is it live or is it Memorex?
  23. The Value of Voice
  24. Predictions for 2006
  25. Five Questions...for Christopher Dede
  26. Five Questions... for John Seely Brown
  27. Five questions...for Shigeru Miyagawi
  28. "Deep" thoughts
  29. 5 questions... for Richard E. Mayer
  30. Designing usable, self-paced e-learning courses
  31. Want better courses?
  32. Just "DO IT"
  33. Five questions...
  34. Formative evaluation
  35. Senior service
  36. Blogging to learn and learning to blog
  37. My life as a Wikipedian
  38. Five questions...for Elliott Masie
  39. The stripper and the bogus online degree
  40. Five questions...for Lynn Johnston
  41. Five questions...for Tom Carey
  42. Five questions...for Karl M. Kapp
  43. Five questions...for Larry Prusack
  44. Five questions...for Seb Schmoller
  45. Do distance and location matter in e-learning?
  46. Why do our K-12 schools remain technology-free?
  47. Music lessons
  48. Learn to apologize for fun and profit
  49. Of web hits and Britney Spears
  50. Advertising or education?
  51. Five questions…for Matt DuPlessie
  52. Back to the future
  53. Serious games for serious topics
  54. Five (or six) questions...for Irene McAra-McWilliam
  55. Learner on the Orient Express