Long live the status quo September 29, 2011
Posted by Mike Gulliver in post.Tags: AAG, carbon, innovation, status quo, travel
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About a week ago, I reluctantly had to tell the organisers of the sessions on Deaf Geographies at the AAG 2012 that I wouldn’t be able to attend. The cost of the conference (£200) plus the flights (£400 + tax) plus accommodation (++?) means that, although it’s a subject that I’m passionate about, I just couldn’t justify the expense.
Then I heard that it might be possible to sign up and then ‘find that I couldn’t go any more’ and send in my submission on film… so I signed up.
I’ve just heard that the AAG don’t allow pre-recorded presentations, and that there is no way to webcast into the proceedings.
So, having paid my sign-up, I now have to work out whether to lose some of that, and revert to the original plan, or whether to try and get there anyway. (more…)
‘Disabled’ or ‘with disabilities’ September 26, 2011
Posted by Mike Gulliver in Musings.Tags: Disability, disabled, discourse, enabling, human rights, UN
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I recently overheard someone saying that it’s no longer ‘correct’ to talk about ‘Disabled people’. Apparently, the UN and other international organizations use ”people with disabilities” instead.
It makes me think that we’ve slipped back to the 1960s again. (more…)
Where are the V-lists? September 8, 2011
Posted by Mike Gulliver in DEAF, Musings, Technology.Tags: email, Twitter, v-lists, video
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I’ve been following several debates on a list for Deaf academics recently – I’m kind of privileged to even be able to follow it, given that I’m not deaf. It’s predominantly a list with academics in the US, UK, Australia etc… there are very few from non-English writing countries and all discussions are held in written English.
So, a recently mail caught my eye asking why it was that there was no method for posting in sign language – either ASL, BSL or any other.
The idea that this is even a sensible suggestion is one that should make the hearing world sit up and take notice. The idea that a group of internationally dispersed academics could conduct academic discussions in a number of different sign languages and all make sense of each other is something that the hearing world should marvel at. Sign languages, however you theorise them, as long as they are natural languages and not some form of signed spoken system like SSE or Cued Speech, are able to flow towards each other in the iconic which still carrying nuanced meaning in a way that spoken languages (with their so-easily-broken point and click sound=meaning reference system) could never do.
But there’s another thought that makes the question pertinent – which is where are the V-lists?
We now have the web tech to create v-lists… so why aren’t we doing it? You wouldn’t want to carry the video in the mail, it would be too big, but you could simply refer people back to a URL on a site like YouTube?
But lists are easy, you just click ‘reply’ and have done with it.
Perhaps Twitter is the answer as you can record the video direct from within the tweet on something like Tweetdeck
What would it take to set up a ‘list’ that worked with video?
Check out The Deaf Geographies Sandbox news on… September 1, 2011
Posted by Mike Gulliver in Musings.Tags: geography
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Check out The Deaf Geographies Sandbox news on yesterdays rgs-ibg conference.
