THEORIZING SYNCHRONICITY

1
THEORIZING SYNCHRONICITY

• Toward a New Pedagogy for Videoconferencing
• IRC, IBAC (VOIP) POTS
• Peter Paolucci, Ph.D.

2
Be Alert For

• Intrusiveness of hardware furniture
• Constraints make movement unnatural
• Attention drift in participants
• Media melding (talking heads)
• Information overload distraction (noise)
• Mis-interpretation of communication cues

3
Be Alert For

• Non-technical factors (motivation, culture,
  pre-conceptions) still primary
• Politics of power submission always in play
• Hence
• No real "best practices"
• Need for a dialectical and contextual pedagogy

4
OVERVIEW

• Taxonomy of VC Environments Their Technologies
  Pedagogies
• Theoretical Cultural Issues
• Practicalities
• Glossary
• References

5
3 WAYS TO USE VC

• Broadcasting (-)
• Monitoring ()
• Interactivity ()

6
/ -

• () Improves asynchronous email, WWW,
  conferencing
• (-) VC a hazardous medium
• Less information than usual
• Limited angles points of view
• Not an "invisible" technology
• Visual distractors "Media leakage"
• NOT synchronous

7
TAXONOMY

• Front End vs Back End
• 3 Modes
• SITE-BASED (Site-to-site and Multi-Site)
• POINT-BASED (Point-to-Point and Multi-Point)
• ENTERPRISE (Bi-Modal)

8
FRONT END

• Site Based
• Point Based

9
SITE-TO-SITE

• 2 sites connected

B
A
10
MULTI-SITE

• 3 in connected via bridge or satellite

B
A
Bridge
C
D
11
POINT-TO POINT

• 2 individuals connected
• AKA "Desktop Webcasting"

Internet
12
MULTI-POINT

• 3 individuals connected

Internet Server
13
ENTERPRISE

• 3 in connected via bridge or satellite

Bridge
C
D
14
BACK END

• Site Based (H.320)
• Point Based (H.323)

15
ISDN Codec
Compression

Transmission
Decompression
16
PROTOCOLS 1

• What is a protocol?
• Rules that govern
• What happens
• How
• When (under what conditions)
• Sequencing

17
PROTOCOLS 2

• H.320 ISDN
• Controls compression/decompression
• Video and audio
• "bundles" other protocols
• Transport rules
• H.323 Over "IP" (IP Addressing)
• similar

18
PROTOCOLS 3

• In Enterprise, H.320 H.323 need to talk to each
  other
• Therefore transcoding required
• Contributes to more "lag time"

19
SYNCHRONICITY

• Never really achieved
• Always approximated
• Often assumed

20