I just had my first successful video chat using iChat and the iSight camera on my Macbook Pro. It was a brief conversation with one of our IT guys who himself just got a Macbook Pro this week. It was unnerving just because I can’t stand seeing or hearing myself talk, but cool that such a thing is possible.
There are lots of useful implications for this technology in the teaching context, such as having “office hours visits” with students or recruiting high school students for the engineering program and so forth. When we go back to China for adoption #2 about a year from now, I hope to be able to use this technology to stay in touch with the Doodlebug back home.
It seems like just maybe 10 years ago the idea of a working video telephone was Star Trek stuff.
Filed under: Apple, Geekhood, Technology
[...] Speaking of iSight, I meant to post some of these photos a while ago. Back over Memorial Day, we took a trip to visit my side of the family. I took the Macbook just in case we hit a wifi hotspot and wanted to surf, and so I could show off some pictures. One night, I was showing off the computer to my nieces and nephews, and we started messing around with PhotoBooth. Hilarity ensued. Here’s a sample (click to enlarge): [...]