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The Firewall in the Mind (Slide 43)
Webheads and teaching professionals: The problem of online participation at conferences

So that was my idea. Now, about my problem. I thought a conference where I am presenting on this topic should have an online component to it. There are many forms this component could take. What is needed at minimum is, as I am doing, a simple way for me to speak to an audience at large.

Sophie, who invited me to present here after attending one of our presentations in Barcelona, and who has occasionally dropped by our Webheads online classes, was very supportive of the idea, but to pull it off you need three things. Just three things:

• An audio and / or video signal to enter the computer
• An encoder to capture the signal and send it via the Internet to a streaming server
• And a server that can accept the encoded media stream and feed it out to all comers.

The last one was the problem. The first two can be done with software that is essentially free and easily available. And they are easy to set up and operate. But the server needs certain licensed software installed, and enough bandwidth to accommodate multiple users in the anticipated stream.