Once upon a time, way back in the dark ages of 1985, I did the technical part of the world's first fully integrated (what today would be called "hybrid") on-site, and online (what today would be called "remote"), conference. Today, this would be known as hybrid, but in those days, being the first, the question would have been hybrid what?
The conference included participants from 125 countries. We had about 75 people on-site, at what was then the North Vancouver school district's outdoor school, north of Squamish, in Paradise Valley. We had online attendance of about two hundred people. As various organizations have recently found when going to remote/virtual online meetings, we were able to attract some very big name speakers, because they could participate, fairly easily, from wherever they were, and didn't require financial assistance for air travel and hotels.
The arrangements for the conference would be considered fairly primitive by today's standards. There was no video conferencing, and there wasn't even really any audio conferencing. BC Tel, as it then was, did participate in providing additional telephone lines, and long distance charge deferments, so that we could dial into CompuServe. The conferencing was text-based, and only text based. We did have a fantastic line up of speakers, as well as participation from some high level people, as well as those who were just parents, with their children.
I should perhaps note that this was the World Logo Conference, Logo being the computer language designed by Seymour Papert, and implemented by others (somewhat based on Lisp), intended for use by children. It is easy enough to get them started with the graphic aspects of the language, which motivates them to learn the language and structure, and concepts of programming. This then provides an entry to programming of all sorts. The language is not limited to graphics, although many teachers who use it never get beyond that part of the language.
I must admit that, with responsibility for making sure that the technical parts of the program actually ran, I didn't get too much of a chance to participate in the conference proceedings themselves, except when I was running certain of the online sessions.
Online sessions were interesting. We did have people who were reporting on the on-site sessions, and giving written resumes of the local sessions, for those online to read at their leisure. In terms of the online sessions, and reporting to those who were on-site, we had huge sheets of particle board that we used as bulletin boards, and tacked printouts of the online sessions, and the discussions going on, on to those bulletin boards. This was easier to do in those days, when everybody used fanfold paper, and so we had an awful lot of five and six foot long transcripts of sessions, on the bulletin boards that lined the walls.
As noted, I moderated some of the online sessions. I well remember one, that started at six in the morning, locally. This was because it was a reasonable time for the speaker, who was a big name in the Logo community. At one point he raised the issue of teaching kids the three-dimensional shape of the Logo screen. The logo screen is, of course, two dimensional, but, in regard to graphics, it wraps around. He asserted that this shape represented a sphere.
It has always bugged me when people simplify technical material too much, presenting a rather patronizing attitude that the unwashed masses simply cannot understand technical concepts. As far as I'm concerned, and as far as I have observed over the years, many such technical concepts are really quite simple. And so, in the interest of accuracy, I responded to this particular part of his presentation and noted that the surface, when correctly mapped, did not form a sphere, but actually a toroid, or doughnut shape.
This, possibly predictably, drew the ire of the presenter, who did not want to be corrected. He said that nobody would understand what a toroid was, and that the representation as a sphere was perfectly acceptable, and understandable, and that, in any case, if I was insisting on representing the screen as a doughnut shape, where was the hole?
I figured that I had done enough trouble, so I wasn't going to respond. But, as noted, there were parents, with children, participating in our online sessions. One such was a mother, with her five-year-old child. As soon as the speaker made his comment, taking me to task for suggesting that the shape was a toroid, and asking where the hole was, she responded that Harley, her child, said that the whole was the "not screen."
That's actually a fairly sophisticated analysis, and, on many different levels, is correct. I felt completely justified, without having to defend myself at all, and this is one of my favorite teaching experiences.
One of my favourite, but not *the* favourite. When asked one time about my favourite experience in teaching, I couldn't recall one. But Gloria did, and reminded me of the incident.
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