Replacing place

T+D, Jan, 2003 by Eva Kaplan-Leiserson

Once upon a time, long long ago, there was a concept called place. If you wanted to see your mother, learn from your teacher, or talk to your friend, you had to be in the same place as they were. Any distance, whether meters or miles, yards or kilometers, was a major obstacle to communication, collaboration, and learning.

Then came the telegraph and the telephone, fax machines and email, and place became steadily more irrelevant. Now, with the advent of videoconferencing, collaboration software, the Internet2, and other technologies, the idea of place is being replaced. We can not only talk to, see, work with, and learn from people who are a far distance from us, but we can even listen to their heartbeats, dance with them, and feel their touch. Skeptical? Read on. These innovative at-a-distant technologies and programs range from Wow! to way out there.

E-internships. Cost-cutting companies are hiring students for virtual internships, in which they work on short-term assignments from afar. For example, college students in Arkansas worked for Cardinal Health in Ohio, doing data warehousing and other Internet projects. The students used school computers and were paired with a mentor.

Virtual medical school. Students who don't have access to a traditional medical school will now be able to study medicine at the International Virtual Medical School, created by more than 50 institutions in 16 countries.

The school, opening in summer 2004, will mix online classes and activities, virtual practice using computerized medical records, and real-time practice in students' home countries. Learners will even be able to "listen". to a patient's heartbeat through vibrations in a computer mouse.

Dances With Video. Last October, the Cleveland Institute of Music put on a ground-breaking show: For six performances, three dancers and three musicians in Cleveland joined up via streaming audio and video with three dancers and two musicians in Los Angeles. The collaborative dance, Cultivating Communities: Dance in the Digital Age, demonstrated the capabilities of Internet2 technology, which streams audio and video up to 5000 times faster than a typical PC. Project administrators say this type of collaboration in the arts opens the door to revolutionary multisensory learning.

Touch technology. Imagine learning how to operate a piece of machinery when you're hundreds or thousands of miles away from it. Sound far-fetched? A team of researchers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and University College London have performed the first transatlantic touch, via a robotic arm attached to a computer screen.

The arm exerts a precise amount of force back on the user. In the rest, fur-apart users worked together to pick up a virtual box. The demonstration was so real to one reporter that he jumped backward when he felt the touch of the arm.

Send press releases or short articles on news, trends, and best practices to Intelligence, T D, 1640 King Street, Box 1443, Alexandria, VA 22313-2043. Email intelligence@astd.org.

More

* E-internships

www.usatoday.com/money/companies/management/2002-10-21-virtual_x.htm

* Virtual medical school

http://chronicle.com, search on "virtual medical" (must be a subscriber)

* Dances With Video

www.internet2.edu

(GO TO) "E-News" NYCU (August 2002 T D) for another use of the internet2.

* Touch technology

http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/nr/2002/touchlab3.html