Tuesday, April 08, 2008

No Limits to Life blog and Assistive Technology carnival

Well, it was bound to happen sooner or later.

I guess it can be called information overload. I get a little overwhelmed, read a good number of some good articles and posts and, with all good intentions, bookmark them to come back later and write about them. Then, sometimes, things happen in my non-blog life, distracting me and I get a little slow in getting the post written.

This time, my hesitation has led to me being trumped.

For over a week now, I’ve had Lon Thornburg’s
No Limits to Life
Blog bookmarked, planning to write a post here about this smartly written assistive technology resource.

After leaving a comment on one of Lon’s posts last week, he checked out Access Ability and has written a very complimentary post about my humble blog. Thanks, Lon. (He also sent me an equally complimentary email about Access Ability.)

Despite looking like a tit for tat exchange, I’m still going to rave about No Limits to Life, though. This is one of the most intelligent and realistic perspectives I’ve seen presented on using assistive technology. I feel this is a great sister site that anybody who reads Access Ability would find of interest. The issues and concerns shared on it are timely and of interest to those in the postsecondary disability services field, as well as anybody with an interest in disabilities and assistive technology.

As an extra topping on this sweet dessert, Lon has also begun the
Assistive Technology Carnival.
If you’re wanting to familiarize yourself with the carnival style presentation of ideas, do check out this site.

The way the carnival works is that different bloggers write posts related to the proposed theme by the deadline and the host site writes a brief piece, linking to each of them. Last month’s theme on the initial round was “How you use assistive technology.” I had just read that round of the carnival when the deadline had passed, so I missed out on that one.

This month’s theme is “My favorite post” and the only restriction is that it must be related to assistive technology. The deadline for inclusion is Friday, April 25, 2008.

Like the blog says, “Any level of user is welcome. This is not just for experts.” So, if you are so inclined, submit your favorite blog post (or link to it)by email to
lonthornburg@nolimits2learning.com

Alternatively, you can also submit your post directly to the blog carnival site at
http://blogcarnival.com/bc/submit_3810.html

I’ve also added both the No Limits to Life blog and the AT Carnival blog on my blogroll for future reference.

I’ll see you at the carnival!

5 comments:

Darrell said...

It is just unfortunate that Blog Carnival is covering assistive technology while featuring an inaccessible visual CAPTCHA. How unhappily ironic. Thus far, the web site operators have chosen to ignore numerous attempts at communication of requests for the proper resolution of this lockout. Rather upsetting to be locked out of a discussion of assistive technology through the use of a "no blind people allowed" sign.

Ron Graham said...

Hi Darrell,

I agree. I think that’s incredibly ironic.

Just as ironic, I was looking at some of my posts to find a favorite to put up on the carnival, I feel that inaccessible CAPTCHA is a good subject and have looked at what I had written about that. I didn’t know the carnival site had such, though.
I’ve had some good email dialogue with the host of that site and will immediately bring that to his attention. I’ll leave it to Lon to find resolution to this matter. I feel confident that he will work diligently to make this problem go away.

Lon said...

Ron, Thank you so much for your post. I am humbled -believe me! I do what I do because I have a passion for it - like all of us.
I am hot on the trail today and posted a notice on my sidebars about the blog carnival issue. I sent a letter to the support email this morning concerning this.
I have pulled the widget that connects them off my site and we will function with my email until they make a decision to fix the situation. I told them I would love to be able to post that BC is 100% behind universal design and access by the visually impaired. We'll see what happens.
All the best to y'all!
Lon

Ruth said...

Hi Ron,

I was hoping that my blogging would put me in the way of other bloggers interested in assistive technology and accessibility and lead me to a wealth of information and I was right!

Great blog Ron, will add you to my list!

My next challenge is to do some more testing (I started life as a librarian, now I'm turning into a computer nerd!) on other Web 2.0 applications with JAWS and maybe Supernova (although I'm not as big a fan of it as I am of JAWS).

I work with visually impaired students at a University in the UK, so I'll be interested to find out about things happening across the pond in the USA.

The challenge is on to make life accessible to everyone!

Ruth

Ron Graham said...

Darrell,

I hope this has the beginnings to make the carnival site accessible. I had to step out for the day and hadn’t emailed Lon, but he read your comment and posted about it on his
No Limits to Life blog
before I had contacted him about the matter. Without asking him to, Lon addressed this in a manner in which I felt he would. He’s a caring and passionate professional who has used assistive technology himself.

In his post on this matter, Lon has also written a request to the blog carnival host and asked them to employ ReCAPTCHA, as well as encouraging others to write and request the same. He provides the email address for this to make it an easy process. I have just sent in my request and hopefully others will follow suit. After all, an assistive technology carnival that is not accessible by those who use assistive technology just doesn’t make sense.

There was once a Warden who used to have a plaque behind his desk that read, “When common sense and the rules collide, common sense shall prevail.” Hopefully the administrators of the blog carnival site will understand that it is only common sense that we are asking them to comprehend with this request.