Granted, not much good comes out of pandemics or other catastrophes like war. If there is a silver lining at all, it’s that sometimes dire need accelerates the application of technology to fill a void. With so many people forced to work for home for social distancing, teleconferencing technology has proven to be a huge aid in facilitating collaboration and continuing knowledge work without a significant hit to productivity.

If you think about education, it has been particularly hard hit in the past few months. While education has significantly ramped up the use of technology over the past 20 years, much learning and activity still relies on more traditional in-person interaction. In the past few months, schools in St. Louis and across Missouri have been forced to shift to remote learning and scrambled to implement the right processes to manage it.

Fortunately, the technology for teleconferencing systems and remote collaboration is now quite mature and has come down the affordability cost curve dramatically. Facebook recently announced a rethinking of their workforce, where they might allow half of it or more to work remotely from home. In the same vein, schools can think about innovative ways of using teleconferencing to supplement existing learning programs and better respond to extreme situations, whether it's a pandemic or a severe weather event.

Keep reading to learn how.