NEWS FLASH: I’ve just received word that today JISC have published the final report for the JELS project (full title: ‘A study of effective evaluation models and practices for technology supported physical learning spaces’). This is great news for me and the team. You can read the final report on the JISC project pages, or visit the Learning Sciences Research Institute project pages.
Back from an intense and interesting time at the Interface 2009 conference. This was my first experiment with live micro-blogging (yes, Tweeting) from an event. Interface prooved to be a dynamic symposium and a real credit to the Humanities and Computer Science hosts and organisers. The Keynotes and speakers included Dame Wendy Hall, Google Geographer and ex-e-Government man Ed Parsons, Willard McCarty (who delivered a very erudite critique of inter-disciplinary machinations) alongside Sarah Porter (JISC), Stephen Brown (DMU) and others.
It was great to meet so many people from the hard Arts (such as Theology, Literature and Archaeology) critically applying new technologies. As an English graduate with a secret passion for medieval literature, I was genuinely delighted by demonstrations of research and tools opening up internet access to documents and information hundreds of years old. But this is just one of many areas where new possibilities and networks were exposed.
If you would like to find out more about Interface, delegate ‘lightning’ papers are now available on Scribd, so click if you’d like to browse the papers visit the Scribd pages. I’ve embedded my short paper on Aversive Disablism and the Internet below (click through, or adjust the settings as you like), but if Scribd isn’t for you here is the Word Version.
[scribd id=17193949 key=key-1kxsanjwzyk7qswx8bj4]
This week I’m travelling down to Southampton University for the interdisciplinary symposium Interface 2009, set to run over Thursday 9th and Friday 10th. This promises to be a busy event with a heavy schedule – but I’m hoping to fit some live reporting/blogging in there somewhere. I’ll be presenting my ‘Lightening Paper’ on Aversive Disablism and the Internet, so I’m also hoping resulting discussion will ferment some thoughts on this. No doubt keynotes and other presenters will also bring interesting food for thought. I’ll try and capture this as best I can.
Last week I watched the brilliant Not One Less directed by Yimou Zhang (the man responsible for directing the opening of the 2008 Olympic games and the equally accomplished Raise the Red Lantern). This is a wonderful film, that uses non-actors and naturalistic footage to startling effect. In brief, the story follows the exploits of 13 year old substitute teacher Wei as she struggles to keep her class together in a dilapidated rural primary school. The film has been cited as an astute example of censorship politics as Yimou weaves themes such as rural poverty, urban juvenile homelessness, and a woefully underfunded educational system into an uplifting story that has gained international critical acclaim. Notably, this film is also useful for educators seeking a lucid portrayal of Problem Based Learning.
The efficacy of PBL can split opinion, but has been used particularly successfully here at the University of Nottingham for Post Graduate Medical training. I’ve already cited PBL resources available online from the University of Nottingham’s PESL project, featuring staff and students’ reflections along side seminar footage . Not One Less offers something entirely different and yet in many ways entirely the same.
The film galvanises around Wei and her classes efforts to get her to the big city. What is the bus fare? How much is a return trip for the teacher and a student? How can they afford it? How much must everybody contribute? How long does each student need to work to raise the cash? In these circumstances the children demonstrate key principles of PBL to great effect. If you are applying PBL or teaching pedagogic principles and wishing to demonstrate key concepts, this film is definitely worth a look and may offer a useful illustration and vignette for group reflections and discussion.
Yesterday Apple announced the next iteration of the iPhone, the 3Gs. The good news is it’s more accessible. Tim O’Brien offers a promising and comprehensive analysis of Apple’s recent developments in his article New iPhone 3G S, More Accessibility. This comes highly recommended.
Caramel Whistle have just published the results of a thorough trawl of the web, seeking out the best Sign Language resources for students of BSL. This round-up includes Mobile Signs and some of the resources and technical vocab sites I’ve listed here previously, but more importantly he introduces some great new finds.
For me, there are two clear highlights. The first is Spread the Sign, a European website that hosts a text-to-sign search. This allows you to translate a word or phrase from a range of european spoken languages into a sign language equivalent. You can search for a term and then view the results in BSL, or see it signed in any of 10 languages, including Swedish, Turkish, Russian, French, German, Spanish, Portuguese and Czech. Importantly, video is smooth and sharp. This is a great site that rewards exploration.
The second highlight is Qia Resources for ICT. This site offers common and specialist vocabulary on Information and Communications Technology. As with Art Signs, this is useful for anyone working in media, education, computer science or a related discipline.
See the full article here: Learning-a-Language.
Another useful free tool for post graduates and academics. YouSendIt is a secure online file transfer service for sending large files that can’t be squeezed through your inbox. This service is useful for all sorts of situations, particularly if you’re looking for a high-speed (quicker, cheaper, perhaps greener?) alternative to putting a CD in the post. Their ‘Lite’ service is free and supports up to 1GB per month. Perfect if you’re looking for an easy way to share audio or video files with third parties for collaboration or transcription, without using FTP.
Since starting my BSL course last year (final exam on Monday!) I’ve been struck by the potential for mobile technologies to assist translation and memory for BSL students on the move. As a result, I was really excited to discover Mobilesign, an online dictionary developed by the University of Bristol’s Centre for Deaf Studies (and discovered via a hunch based upon yesterday’s edition of the BBC’s See Hear). From what I can glean, Mobilesign has been developed in conjunction with SignStation, a website promoting Deaf awareness and workplace materials.
Mobilesign contains over 5000 BSL signs, available through a minimal, mobile friendly interface. Suitable for phones, PDAs and any other networked mobile tech, signs can be searched for by string (any search term, or set of terms) or through the A-Z index. Through sister site SignStation you can explore by category or via a picture dictionary when you register. Registration is free.
Bristol cite an underlying bespoke content management system allowing
access to indexes of the most requested signs, related signs and regional variations. This rewards exploration, and complements other materials from CACDAP and the great resources developed by the University of Wolverhampton that I’ve linked to previously. To see all my articles linking to BSL resources, pop ‘BSL’ in the search box, or use the BSL category listed on the left.
Early in May I flagged the Open University’s mini-conference and live web casts on the ‘Net Generation: Critical and International Perspectives’. If you missed out, recordings from May 11th are now available online via their select replay section.
With the European Elections fast approaching, the Open Rights Group have asked UK candidates what they think about key digital rights issues such as online privacy, surveillance state, open internet and copyright reform. To view responses, visit the Open Rights Group EU Election pages.
The Open Rights Group is a grassroots technology organisation which exists to protect civil liberties wherever they are threatened by the poor implementation and regulation of digital technology. This is an important area for advocacy and got me thinking. When we consider digital rights – particularly Internet access as a human right – government action to ensure equitable internet access and close digital divides appears straightforward. However, the intersection between the internet and disabled people as users is not the sum, total interface between digital infrastructure and disability.
Last year at the biennial Disability Studies Association conference in Lancaster (UK), Australian academic Dr Helen Meekosha presented the keynote Contextualizing disability: developing southern/global theory. This paper advocated global perspectives on disability, challenging gaps in western/northern disability discourse. Meekosha observes that global levels of disability are not a given, they are dependent on factors such as war, disaster, economics and climate change. In view of this, the decisions made by elected governments on defence, trade, international aid and the environment have repercussions for levels of disability around the world. I would argue that digital legislation is bound into this policy ecology. For example, in environmental terms… (I’m thinking of Nicolas Carr’s assertion that the average Second Life avatar consumes as much energy as the average Brazillian and the revelations that the CO2 emissions of the ICT industry outstrip aviation) …green computing could be concieved as a human rights and disability issue.
However, Meekosha identifies more direct causal effects relating technology and disability, specifically through outsourcing to ‘eSweatshops’. She also observes:
Disability scholars rarely venture into this territory – leaving these issues to scholars in feminism and international development.
Citing the excellent article ‘A New Front in the Sweatshop Wars?‘ by Farrell & Olsen, (2001) Meekosha highlights the emergence of eSweatshops, dedicated to data processing, as a physically damaging, disabling environments. Farrell and Olsen scope high-profile academic digitisation projects that have been sub-contracted to countries such as Barbados, India, Mexico and Cambodia whilst observing the lack of any regulation. In one instance they describe disabled people targeted for employment by a Harvard sub-contractor. This is a complex area of competing interests, deftly handled by Farrell and Olsen. More recent literature from organisations such as Cafod focuses on manufacturing sweatshops, for ICTs and software. It’s a reminder that digital resources, tools and structures can infringe rights and create impairment, outside traditional views of inaccessible systems and accessibility discourse.