The Patriot

The phone company had to change our phone number in order to solve the problems we had with the first number that they gave us. It’s a long story and I don’t understand it. Our new new number is (281) 373-2233.

Covenant Academy has been located at Cypress Bible Church since the school began in 2003. We are now in the process of moving into our beautiful new location about 10 minutes west of our previous home.

Our old phone number is supposed to ring at our old office for the rest of the week. The new phone number is (281) 758-3200, though we’re having a little trouble with that number today as we get things set up. Our web site and email have not changed.

This summer I’m helping teach a course in medical statistics. There are a few dozen students in the classroom in Houston, and several other students in two remote locations. The remote students see me via a camera pointed at my podium. The Houston students and I see the remote students projected on a screen at the front of the room.

The classroom suppresses spontaneity. I can’t run over to a marker-board and answer a question because the remote students couldn’t see what’s going on. Not that there are many questions. The students attending live don’t have microphones. If they do ask a question, either someone runs up to them with a microphone as if they were in the audience of a talk show, or I repeat the question into my microphone. I encourage questions, but the classroom discourages them. The classroom usually wins. As much as I would prefer to engage students in discussion, the room was designed for PowerPoint presentations.

Although I’m frustrated by the technology, I realize that without it students outside major cities would have fewer opportunities. I’m learning to adjust to my limitations. (It’s interesting how adding teleconference equipment to a room decreases its functionality.) I wonder what kinds of dialogs Plato would have with his students if they had been in scattered locations talking into web-cams.