Skype and the Telepresence Holiday Surprise

December 23, 2012 by Christopher Isak 3 Comments »

Skype brings Santa Claus into Classrooms via Telepresence

Skype picked three classrooms from across the world and provided the chance to have a telepresence session plus open Q&A with the person they were all waiting for – Santa Claus. The schools were also provided with a $10,000 Microsoft Store voucher each to give the children a better chance to be educated about high-end technology and software. Read the full story on the Skype Blog.

Events like this enhance the public recognition of telepresence as a common way of communication which is also good for the industry in the end. Such initiatives can also be seen from LifeSize, who are frequently holding educational events open for schools to join. The recent release of the new Nintendo console with telepresence capabilities also greatly adds to increase the consumer feeling of video communication being a normal option for communication that might replace the text chat that was used until now.

It is interesting to see that Skype / Microsoft continues to drive this even beyond the Skype integration in Microsoft Outlook and of course it is great to see how they do it and making children happy on the way to a unified solution and interoperability (or interop in short) between home and enterprise users.

And while we are in the right spirit now, please allow me to wish happy holidays to all our readers on behalf of the whole Telepresence24.com team!

Santa in the Classroom

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Christopher Isak

Professional Services at GMS - Global Media Services GmbH

I write about topics like Telepresence, ITSM, Creativity and all that techie things you all love.

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Posted in: For Home, News, Telepresence

Tags: Blog, Chatting, Communication, Consumer, enterprise, Home, industry, interop, interoperability, IT, LifeSize, Microsoft, microsoft outlook, microsoft store, nintendo, Office, Outlook, Personal Telepresence, Screen, Shana Pearlman, Skype, Social, software, Technology, Telepresence, unified solution, Video, video communication, Webcam

http://haroldgardner.wordpress.com Harold Gardner

Over the holiday, I was talking with my nephew, a first year medical school student, about the use of technology in education. Funny to hear a highly technical kid argue for traditional models; while the crotchety old uncle argued for technology augmentation to eliminate most classrooms. He asked about how to get practical lab experience, and I offered the apprenticeship model. He laughed realizing that was largely the med school model.
- http://www.about.me/ChristopherIsak Christopher Isak
  
  Hi Harold,
  that is interesting to hear. I guess times are really changing after all. I believe the right approach to everything is a good balance between good practice and new technologies. While “balanced” of course varies from one subject to another.
  Thanks for your insight!
  
  Best regards,
  Chris
  - http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100003407374798 Angelica
    
    prettywomang / Better conferencing than Skype is a bit miedsaling when considering how these two solutions are marketed. Skype is also on mobile devices and seems to focus on consumer needs. Vidyo is a different animal and is all about corporate needs such as an alternative solution to bulky VTC’s that do seem to be a waste of money. They are both great, Skype and Vidyo, but each has it’s own application and target areas for specific needs. Vidyo may be a great solution for businesses who want to save money.