Queen's professor beams in from Cape

By Sharon Lindores, Kingston Whig-Standard

2000-12-12 - Prof. John Gordon is a longtime space junkie and he wouldn't have missed the landing of the space shuttle Endeavour last night for anything.

Watching the return in the comfort of his home, however, was nothing like seeing it blast off from Cape Canaveral Nov. 30.

Gordon went to Florida courtesy of a personal invitation from astronaut Marc Garneau.

The only problem with the five-day jaunt was he had to teach the executive MBA program via video-conferencing while he was away.

NO PROBLEM

It turned out to be no problem. NASA was able to accommodate him, and his classes were taught from the Cape without a glitch.

"It was the first time we've done video-conferencing from out of the country," said Gordon, chairman of the MBA for science and technology program at Queen's University.

"To do it with NASA and in conjunction with the launch added a few bells and whistles."

Queen's executive MBA was the first in the country to be taught via video conferencing, in 1994.

They've honed the system over the years and now every other week Gordon uses the Queen's centre to teach two 3 1/2 hour classes to 150 working professionals across the country.

14 CITIES

The students can take their class in any one of the 50 boardroom learning centres Queen's has in 14 cities, but Gordon has always taught from Kingston.

"We joke about their flexibility. We have now shown we can be just as flexible," Gordon said.

Arrangements for the post-launch class began in October with Al Sedgewick, manager of video conference services for Queen's School of Business, getting in touch with NASA.

Security clearances, equipment tests and technological details had to be worked out in advance.

Three technicians from Queen's and four at NASA co-ordinated the effort, which involved reprogramming some of the equipment used for the launch.

NASA hosted the full day of classes at no charge. (Video conference rooms in the United States cost about $400 an hour to rent.)

"Their commitment to higher education really shone through," Sedgewick said, adding the experience was good for both Queen's and NASA.

Robert Singer, the space agency's video-conference production specialist, agreed.

"It provided some challenges for us but we learned many things," Singer said. "We very much enjoyed it."

The quality of video conferencing that Queen's students experience is better than what the astronauts use in space, where priority is given to other technological devices in the shuttle.

"I see the [video-conference] technology being used more heavily with better quality in coming years," Singer said.

The technology was perfect for Gordon and his students. He said they didn't notice the class was any different than usual - except for a blastoff video after the lesson.

Gordon said being in Cape Canaveral was spectacular. He's a pilot who has followed the space program since the 1950s, and although he was keen to teach from NASA headquarters, nothing compared with seeing the shuttle blast off in front of his eyes.

"Watching it was fulfilling a dream," he said.

The only thing that would have been better would have been to be inside it."