Online Publishing and Visual Sociology


Following on from the Live Sociology workshop the other week, I’ve been thinking a lot about online publishing, blog and hard copy, and e-books (both onscreen and as mobile hardware).  Along the way, thanks to Jan Brauer’s Gono-Gono arts blog, I’ve stumbled upon http://issuu.com/. 

Issuu allows you to upload PDFs into a book format.   This can then be ‘read’ online – and perhaps more importantly – copyright protected or made available for embedding into blogs, networks or wikis etcetera. Shown above is an example of a book being previewed in its embedded form. The pages are turning automatically, with pictures of smiling students shown, although the accompanying text is too small to make out. Links can be followed though to full screen viewing pages, where the ‘book’ comes into it’s own.  It’s a good looking thing with excellent zoom and good resolution (although a little small in preview here on my humble blog). Although I wonder how accessible it can be as stand alone Flash device, clearly there is a PDF equivalent that can be requested or made available from the source (for advice on making Accessible PDFs, check out the UK’s JISC TechDis pages on Making the Most of PDFs).

A quick thumb through issuu’s library shows that Edinburgh University is already using it as a platform for their prospectus (shown above), with academics illustrating their publication CVs also.  This appears to be a tool yet to reach any critical mass, and graphical books appear to me to be where the platform works best, however, an interesting development for PDF viewers and vehicles all the same?

Easy YouTube, Flickr and Slideshare


Following on from their wonderful ‘Accessibility 2.0: a million
flowers bloom’ conference, Abilitynet have made podcasts, transcripts and summaries of all the presentations available.  If you weren’t able to attend (or even if you were) I highly recommend checking out these resources. Click to visit the downloads and podcasts pages:
Podcasts, transcripts and summaries of Accessibility
2.0 presentations!

You can also subscribe direct
to the podcasts with this link –
http://www.abilitynet.org.uk/feeds/rss_accessibility2.xml

Perhaps even more interesting are some of the developments since the conference, which I think will have implications for major areas of teaching and learning. AbilityNet summarised these factors as follows:

"Bringing together passionate
experts in a field where there are few cut and dry rules can lead to heated
discussion. Since the conference has led to several interesting
developments:

  • A heated
    exchange between Jeremy Keith and Mike Isofarro Davies has resulted in ongoing debate about the
    accessibility of Microformats, hopefully it will lead to an accessible solution
  • What are the
    accessibility concerns with microformats? the BBC’s Jonathan
    Hassel explains
  • Christian Heilmann developed EasyYouTube, a YouTube player for people with learning
    disabilities as a direct response to Antonia Hyde’s presentation on Rich Media
    for people with learning disabilities
  • Christian
    gets fantastic feedback – EasyYouTube also works with screen readers and
    schoolkids use it to access YouTube
  • Following on
    from this success Chris developed EasySlideShare and EasyFlickr
  • Christian
    has taken the idea further by organising Scripting Enabled – an accessibility hack day"

In particular EasyYouTube, EasyFlickr and EasySlideShare look to me like great tools, and the fact the day conference has already led to such positive outcomes (in its first year!) is fantastic.  Congratulations AbilityNet and all involved!

AbilityNet plan to
host Accessibility 2.0 again in Spring 2009. If you would like to receive updates, contact accessibility@abilitynet.org.uk.

Live Sociology 4: Sites and Sounds


Following on from Saturday’s Live Sociology Workshop back at Goldsmiths University, London, I’ve just downloaded Audacity from Sourceforge.  This is free sound editing tool, useful if you’re interested in podcasting, publishing in hypertext or simply editing down your audio data into more managable forms.

The session as a whole was focused on internet publishing and the affordances of multimedia.  Prof Les Back gave the group a preview of a site he has been working on: The Academic Diary – particularly examining the trade off between book and website, with some interesting reflections on attempting to retain the visceral and  physical qualities of the book. 

Of course, publishing works both ways, and another tier to this cross-pollination for consideration comes in the form of Blurb. Blurb is a print-on-demand online service that allows anyone to publish their own books.  At the workshop we got to see some examples of short print runs that Goldsmiths students had published of their own work (complete with ISBNs) – which got me excited about the prospect of publishing my thesis, or support documents in some new and interesting form.  I’ll be checking on the Rules of Submission and getting back to you…

Help Save the Accessibility Institute


I’ve copied the below text directly from DotJay, please act on this.

‘Most people with an interest in web accessibility are likely to have at some point stumbled across the work of the Accessibility Institute at the University of Texas in Austin, which was founded by the late Dr. John Slatin.

The University of Texas has decided to close the Accessibility Institute, which has been a guiding light in our field, giving important opportunity for research and providing useful resources to the world. It would be a real blow to web accessibility to see it go.

If you care about web accessibility, please show your support by putting your name on the petition to save the Accessibility Institute that Knowbility have set up. It only takes a few seconds to do.

There are some great thoughts and comments from people who have signed the petition. Henny Swan has also given some reasons to keep the Institute going on her blog:

Reasons for saving the Accessibility Institute include:

  • Need for research based findings to support accessible design practice.
  • Opportunity for a world class institution like UT to serve as an example to other institutions.
  • Place where emerging practices can be tested and modelled.
  • Contributions to international body of knowledge on inclusion.
  • Maintain thought leadership in Texas, easily disseminated to state agencies that have accessibility mandates.

Thanks for taking the time to read this. Extra special thanks if you have signed the petition.’

Choruses From ‘The Rock’


The final keynote for the ALT conference was given yesterday by David Cavallo, from the One Laptop Per Child project.

In introduction and the keynote itself reference was made to an exerpt from Choruses From ‘The Rock’ by T. S. Elliot (1934).   The except was taken from the opening stanza, which I quote more fully here, with the citations (as I remember them) coloured in red (lines 6-9 and 14-16):

I

The Eagle soars in the summit of Heaven,
The Hunter with his dogs pursues his circuit.
O perpetual revolution of configured stars,
O perpetual recurrence of determined seasons,
O world of spring and autumn, birth and dying!
The endless cycle of ideas and action,
Endless invention, endless experiment,
Brings knowledge of motion, but not of stillness;
Knowledge of speech, but not of silence;
Knowledge of word, and ignorance of the Word.
All our knowledge brings us nearer to our ignorance,
All our ignorance brings us nearer to death,
But nearness to death no nearer to GOD.
Where is the Life was have lost in living?
Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?
Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?
The cycles of Heaven in twenty centuries
Brings us farther from GOD and nearer to the Dust.

from T.S. Eliot, The Complete Poems and Plays. Faber and Faber: London. 1987.

Cavallo seemed deeply concerned with the rediscovery of authentic learning, in the face of information – and this passage has been used in similar ways elsewhere. There’s clearly a lot more going on, but before I get tangled in an A-level style entry on the use of pagan astrological imagery and the deployment of capitalisation in Choral spoken verse, I’m going to quit whilst (still?) ahead! I’m chalking up The Wasteland as further reading…

Retrovertigo


I’m now back in the UK, and, following on from the Lancaster Disability Studies Conference, I’m briefly back at my desk (Association for Learning Technology Conference begins in Leeds tomorrow!).  As such, expect some retrospective blogging.  That is, blogging events into past dates to keep things feeling sequential. 

All going well, I’m also expecting to act as a rapporteur for TechDis at the ALT-C, so reflections on this week’s conference should be more timely!

Academic Network of European Disability Experts


Today was the final day of the UK Disability Studies Association conference in Lancaster.  As almost a footnote to the conference Mark Priestley announced the launch of the European Commission’s ‘Academic Network of European Disability Experts’ (ANED) at http://www.disability-europe.net/. 

Some of the major themes of the Lancaster conference were international concerns – particularly relating to the North/South divide, the export and commercialisation of disability and impairment (in terms of war, arms proliferation, pharmaceuticals, pollution, global warming, (e)sweatshops, etc.) – alongside those of more local UK national policy making.  Within this dichotomy of Home and Abroad, it initially appeared to me that Europe, and in particular EU legislation and it’s impact on British governance, was under-represented.  ANED, however, appears to represent an ambitious and major step forward in addressing policy at the European level. In its own words, the Academic Network aims to support the objectives of European disability policy towards the goal of full participation and equal opportunities for all disabled people.

‘ANED builds upon the expertise of existing disability research centres and national networks, supported by contacts in each country, expert rapporteurs in specific themes, and links to other policy and research networks. In this way, it provides a co-ordinating infrastructure of academic support for practical implementation of the European Disability Strategy and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in Europe.’

NCeSS Conference 2008 Presentation


Today my methods presentation from June’s NCeSS conference went live on the Lancaster ReDReSS (Resource Discovery for Researchers in e-Social Science) website.  This website stores online multimedia presentations, including video and audio alongside slides.  My presentation can be viewed via: http://redress.lancs.ac.uk/resources/launch.php?creator=Lewthwaite_Sarah&title=Disability_Academy_Identity.  This link leads to a page where you can choose the speed of your connection to decide the quality of video and audio.

Other presentations from the 4th International Conference on e-Social Science can be explored at: http://redress.lancs.ac.uk/Workshops/Presentations.html#ess08

Social Experiences of Disability Online


Thanks to all those who came along to my presentation today at the Graduate School for Education at the University of Melbourne. I will be posting the presentation slides here, along with reference material tomorrow. I have also recorded my talk and hope to post some audio materials here, subject to editing and production as soon as possible. If you have any questions that went unanswered during the seminar please do get in touch.

Day 9, Melbourne


The Centre for the Study of Higher Education (CSHE) have just listed my seminar in their Occassional Research and Policy Seminar series. I’ll be presenting from 12.30 on Monday 25th August, in the Barbara Falk Room (1st Floor) CSHE Building, Monash Road, Melbourne University. All are welcome – to register please email Adeline Sze. Here is the Pdf flyer for the event. More event details are available through the CSHE pages.