I can phone him but I don't know if he has his phone with him. I don't know if it is on. I wonder if it is charged. I don't know if it is set on silence and if the volume of the ring is loud enough for him to hear. When we all had what we now call "landlines", the instruments were always getting electricity, the volume was always set loud enough to signal an incoming call and there would usually be some device to record a voice message if the call was not answered. I was impressed with the episode of Downton Abbey when the family and the staff were considering having a telephone installed. There was no question of multiple phones and it was understood that the remarks made on this end could be overheard easily.
Maybe I should text him but I have never gotten a text from him. I wonder if he texts. I could email him but he has several email addresses. Which one is the best one? Does he ever look at all of his accounts?
We seem to be at risk of communication difficulties despite having multiple ways to communicate.
When I moved most of my classes to web sites and work requirements based on emailing me the students' work, I was used to being in the classroom with the students. That arrangement is often called "face to face" and it assumes being able to hear students speak. The media staff and I transmitted the image of me and the classroom and voices, mine and students, to them and to me. It became very clear that transmission failure of the image didn't much interfere with the class, but loss of the voice transmission was equal to turning the machines off.
At that time, my colleagues and I were used to going to a class for 50 minutes or so, teaching orally, accepting questions and comments throughout, collecting written work being handed in at the end of a period and seeing the same class again in a day or so. When we moved to sites and email, it was no longer necessary for students to come to a site. All the course requirements were available on the first day and the work could be done more quickly if desired. Some statistics classes relied on compact discs to be played to learn techniques or on early morning tv transmissions to understand concepts and methods.
