Am I a Luddite to admit that I have never Skyped nor have I FaceTimed? The latest person-to-person connection over the Interwebs app seems to be Zoom. The now-online classes at the local university are being offered via Zoom. The husband sat in on an online thesis defense via Zoom yesterday afternoon. One of my quilt guild chapters has done two meetings over Zoom. And some members in an international online quilt guild to which I belong have been talking about scheduling a Zoom session so we can see how each other is doing.
From what I can tell, Zoom is like Skype in that you see the person with whom you are speaking. Or the persons, each in their own window. I gather that a user can select (or develop?) a personal background in front of which their image will appear. The local university has a selection of university scenes, though professors are not required to use one of those for their lecture sessions. I saw a something on Facebook in which a professor (not local) said he was looking forward to lecturing from Hogwarts, using the image of Hogwarts used in the Harry Potter movies. The tailored background is optional; if you don't use one, whatever is behind you will appear with your image.
For some reason, using Zoom for a group something just seems a bit uncomfortable. The idea of people looking so closely at my face as I participate is funny. I mean, I don't like looking at my face too closely in the mirror, so why would I want to inflict it on others? Before we go further, I do understand that one does not have to use the camera and have one's face included; it appears you can go with audio only.
I'm not at all good in crowds or even in most smaller groups. Going to a quilt guild chapter meeting in person is difficult enough for me; taking it online just makes it harder. Others aren't seeing me from across the room; they're seeing me as if we were face-to-face, a distance I don't really want to be at, especially now.
All that said, I may be having a Zoom conversation with one friend this weekend. For some reason, perhaps my dislike of groups, that does not make me nervous. I don't know that it will give me what I would need to feel comfortable Zooming into a larger gathering, but I guess I'll find out.
Tomorrow, I may even comment on the progression of the novel coronavirus and the re-opening of Georgia. There are no White House briefings this afternoon or tomorrow afternoon, so I might not even have to deal with whatever word salad He Who Shall Not Be Named is spouting. And if I've tried Zoom one-on-one by then, I can report on my comfort level.
1 comment:
Laddo is on the receiving end of tuition by Zoom. I now try not to have the washing machine hit its spin cycle during his music lesson after the first week where it wound down with four minutes to spare. I saw this week that his tutor has moved round and the backdrop was now a minimalist setting - plain settee, single shelf with three or four items on it. Week one had featured stuff piled into cardboard boxes and a cycle hung vertically.
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