Technology rich

We seriously live in the middle of nowhere.  Take a map of Alaska and trace with your index finger down the Aleutian Island chain, find Kodiak Island.  Now, keep going west, you may even see a few cities on the map, perhaps Cold Bay or King Cove.  We are located off of mainland Alaska before the two cities mentioned.  Depending on where we look from our island home, we can either see mainland Alaska or other islands around us.

Living in such a small place does have its perks.  The technology for example, is very impressive.  When we interviewed for the jobs here, we did so over a cellphone.  On the other end of the line was the hiring committee connected via phone and video conference.  I did not understand this fully until we got to the island.  Our meetings take place in front a large flat screen television with a camera mounted on the unit so we quickly learned how it worked.

Today while sitting through a teacher in service, I thought about explaining the process to you all.  Unlike most places, it is difficult for our district to arrange for visitors to come here or even for us to go to other areas for training.  It is costly and the weather is so sketchy that often times wind and rain strand people that do leave or visit.  Currently, our volleyball team is in a similar predicament and likely won't make it home for Thanksgiving.

How do we keep up-to-date or even get trained on basic things living way out here?  Via, Video teleconference.  Check out the images below to better understand what I am talking about.  At first it was felt unnatural but now is part of our life here.

All it takes is a television, a video camera, and an internet connection.  The way it works is that all participants online show up as a small square on the side of the screen.  Our district has six sites, so there are six windows on the screen as well as the presenter's window.  We all put our TVs on mute and the presenter talks.  If someone wants to speak, we have to wait for the appropriate time and then take our TV out of mute mode.

Speaking causes the camera to change from the main speaker's window on screen to the site that is talking (see the image below--the largest window is that of the site that is presenting).  That site then has the largest window on the screen.  When finished, we hit mute and then the next speaker shows up on the screen or it goes back to the main presenter if nobody else has a comment.

It is important to keep an eye on the top right hand corner of the screen for the participants as it shows whether or not their speaker is muted.  The microphones are very sensitive and can pick up even the most quiet comments.  Often times we hear snowplows, trains, and even aircraft from Anchorage's audio feed.    

This technology has been super helpful for the advancement of our team.  We have had meetings with folks all over the place.  One time we even had a training session from a man that was in Mexico.  In general, the presenters that are located outside of the island have better connection speeds, so their screens are crisp and clear.  Out here we have a pretty slow internet connection, but we still benefit from this use of technology.

Above image.  This is the flat screen monitor with the divided screen.  There are six sites online.  The biggest screen shows the person speaking.  Notice how there is no speaker with a line through it in the top right hand corner of the TV screen, we are not on mute.  If we were to break the silence, our screen would pop up as the largest on the monitor.

Take a look at the mural, it shows what island life is like here...  If you can see it.
Also, notice that each person has a laptop in front of them.  Frequently, we have to reference websites or files sent by the presenters on our own computers.  The video conference system does have the capability for the presenter to give various presentations live over the TV (slide shows, etc). Usually, we download these things ahead of time on our computers to view the speaker is talking.  That way we won't risk losing out internet connection on the video conference and have the hassle of reconnecting.

This image sums up what our staff meetings look like.  Of the six districts, our school is the largest.  Since we are so remote, our school district encompasses 15,000 square miles, so video conferences perfectly suit our needs.  Pictured here is only a portion of our staff.  The other staff members were in another meeting in an adjacent room. 

Even though we are far from civilization, we are still very connected and have had some pretty dang good trainings via the internet.