Hi Jennifer. You have a good point! Probably there should be podcasts for
all disabilities. There probably was a time when sighted people wondered
what would a blind person do with a computer, when he can't read the screen.
Of course, this was when screenreaders first came out!
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jennifer Sutton" <jensutton@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <blindcasting@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Saturday, October 15, 2005 9:50 AM
Subject: Re: Disibility Node as part of Ipodder.org categories ...
Hello to all who are trying to speculate on whether or not deaf people care or are involved in podcasts:
I'd like to respectfully suggest that we, as blind folks, simply do not know, nor should we try to guess what Deaf (or deaf) people are doing with podcasts.
Would we like it if deaf people were speculating about us, our needs, and what we do or do not see or want?
We have no idea, for example, what could possibly be done by organizations who currently provide audio podcasts, but could, given the availability of video ipods, also provide transcripts if they wished. It's even conceivable to me that those transcripts could be synchronized with the audio.
As someone suggested, there is video blogging, and with the new video ipods, I wonder whether that may, eventually, be included in the directories. It may not be, but it might be. Who actually knows? Who has defined a podcast as ONLY being audio-based, period?
Just as there is a spectrum of what it means to be blind, there's a wide spectrum in the deaf community in terms of who can hear what and how. Plenty of deaf people can talk which seems contrary to the way people are imagining deafness on this list.
So, as with other ideas about which there's considerable speculation about what is, and is not being done by podcasters with disabilities, I would encourage us all to wait and see who shows up and who's doing what with which technologies..
By the way, my grandparents were deaf, so I would suggest that I actually have some credibility to speak on this subject.
Best, Jennifer
