As we go to press, the FCC announced $7 billion with a B to improve remote access for American students. Where there is money, there is opportunity. Not always in a good way.
As we know, remote learning is technologically complex. As parents we know it’s psychologically complex, and I can only assume that good teachers could expound chapter and verse on the learning experience that is pandemic teaching.
It is, all together, a quadratic—even cubic–equation full of new and unexpected pros and cons and a big, multi-year learning curve for everybody. Enter $7 billion.
On the plus side, schools will be looking to invest in remote learning. There will be money. On the downside, it seems much of that money has been glibly celebrated as a way to get devices and Internet access into the hands of students. Certainly wider Internet access is a good priority for the FCC—a longstanding obstacle to broader opportunity to benefit from the Internet (and suffer from it as well). But devices is a more thorny issue.
On the plus side, schools will be looking to invest in remote learning. There will be money. On the downside, it seems much of that money has been glibly celebrated as a way to get devices and Internet access into the hands of students. Certainly wider Internet access is a good priority for the FCC—a longstanding obstacle to broader opportunity to benefit from the Internet (and suffer from it as well). But devices is a more thorny issue.
However, I remain the optimist that while the forces of special tech interests will scoop up those billions to move gadgets, I hope AV pros can at least have a say. There is so much that matters at the near end of any remote experience. There is no point in being in the audience for a lousy show.
I see you trying. I see conversations about audio quality (very important) and about professionalizing Teams and Zoom. I’m reading with interest about the idea that a videoconferencing platform can be integrated into the total video footprint of the enterprise.
A lot is going on in remote collaboration on the back of the Zooms/ Teams Hunger Games improvisation that has been these past 14 months. Some good, some less so. I suspect touchless and what can be called “hygiene theater” will slowly fade at a bureaucratic pace. However I do believe that remote access will still matter. But what kind? Here you may have the chance to lead—to influence your stakeholders to think about how to make the near end great—so maybe the far end is a little less likely to shut their new laptop or navigate their phone away to all the places kids would rather be.
Devices don’t make an audience stay any more than seats do. There still has to be something worth engaging with.
