Hello FoodWorks Fellows and Friends,

I was really pleased by what folks at our three sites managed to accomplish in the first videoconference, and hope that you were too. Launching the discussion in any class is a complicated and important business, and when using a a new technology the balancing act is even more delicate. Despite various challenges we encountered with the screens and the sound, we prevailed in having a conversation that combined fairly wide participation with extended, probing discussions of Pollan and Petrini as well as the themes of sustainable cities and resilience. Special thanks are due to Ariel for her thoughtful framing of the conference’s second half.

Yesterday morning, while waiting for my flight back to Vermont from Dulles, I had an encouraging phone conversation with Mack Mackenzie, the IT specialist at Middlebury who’s overseeing the videoconferences. Several issues arose, and were dealt with, that I thought you would like knowing about as we look forward to our conferences this week and next. One had to do with the visual aspect of our connections among sites. We’re going to experiment with changing the arrangements of the tables (or doing without tables) and at the same time getting a closer view of each others’ faces. Mack told me something else of interest in this regard. Apparently the Middlebury Fellows were all clearly visible on their own screen, and in the recording he made of the entire videoconference. But in Washington we could only see part of that group. Mack has a good idea about out how to reconfigure the linkage so that the views are the same from all sites. As my Senator Bernie Sanders  likes to say, this would be “Yuge!”  Similarly, Mack has figured out a way to deaden feedback so that two of our sites do not have to be muted when someone from the third is speaking. He’ll be in touch with our Coordinators about how this can work. It will mean that we don’t have to depend exclusively on raised hands in order to see who’s got something to say.

You were all so intrepid about plunging into this technology that I wanted to share these plans for builiding on our first foray.  Just to remind you: the upcoming videoconference from Middlebury will begin with a panel discussion, followed in the second hour by a discussion related to food and climate-change that Mae Quilty will frame for us.

Wishing you all a refreshing and productive weekend,

John