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thegreatlinguini
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Name: Marisa
Metro:
Interests: I'm a linguistics geek and enjoy being silly. Think of me as a tiny person atop a tiny trapeze. Doing little flips thru multilingual puns. Hence, TheGreatLinguini! Ta-dah!
I'm into... language, accessibility, education, Deaf culture, sign languages, bilingualism, cueing, cultural competence, social justice, organic cooking, green living. And sleeping... lots of sleeping.
Expertise: connecting with friends, reading and researching online, food sensitivities and chronic illness, disability studies/culture, finding joy in the little things
Industry: Education
Message: message me
Member Since:
2/26/2006
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| Just a quick update to say yes, I'm still alive. Haven't posted here in a long time... In 2007-08 I was a teaching assistant at Texas School for the Deaf, working with deaf students who have multiple disabilities. That kept me plenty busy and I sort of lost interest in posting blogs for a while.
Now I'm back in school - in the Deaf Studies/Deaf Education graduate program at Lamar University. Really enjoying it so far, and have made lots of new friends.
Also I have another blog called [Deaf + Gifted] Education where I post about deaf ed, gifted ed, and how we can identify and serve deaf students who are gifted. It's a new work in progress, but feel free to visit me there and check out some of the links I've posted there.
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| Hansen Writing Ball Typewriter 142 years ago = Using your Sidekick to order in a restaurant today.Your Sidekick (or Blackberry or Treo) is so useful for jotting notes quickly, and sharing fast text communication with others. Let's go back to 1865 and see how some deaf people may have done it long ago.
The first manual typewriter in the world came about because of Deaf students at a residential school in Copenhagen in the late 1800s. According to Neatorama, "Rev. Rasmus Hansen (1835 - 1890) created this "writing ball", the
world’s first commercially produced typewriter, so his deaf students
can "speak with their fingers."
The most striking feature of the writing ball is the
semi-sphere on top of the machine, with 52 keys sticking out like a
giant pin cushion. At the lower end of each stem is a character, cast
in exactly the right angle to create a perfectly even print on the
central printing point under the ball. The escapement mechanism moved
the paper frame that held the paper one space until the end of the line
was reached. By pushing the button on the left in front of the ball all
the way down, the carriage was turned concentrically back to the
beginning of the line and moved one line to the left.
Read all about the Hansen Writing Ball and other amazing typewriters at the Virtual Typewriter Museum."
Manual typewriter.... Looks like a manual pager to me! 
How did people type on it? Here's how a guy from the Virtual Typewriter Museum did it:
  
Hansen claimed
that you could type 12 letters a second on his machine, compared to
only 4 letters per second in normal handwriting. How fast can you type
on your pager??
Hansen's Role in Deaf Education
Rasmus Hans Malling Johan Hansen (1835-1890) worked as a teacher and as
director of Det Kongelige Døvstummeinstitut i København (The Royal Institute for Deaf-Mutes in Copenhagen, Denmark). From what I have read, it seems that the school was a signing-based school, but a generation before the Milan Conference of 1880, Hansen was influenced by German educators to start adding oral methods. He also was among the first to group students according to their cognitive levels (i.e., average vs. developmentally delayed) and whether they were deaf, late deafened, or hard of hearing. This was a new idea, and up to that point all students were taught in one classroom with one methodology.
(Note that the International Rasmus Malling-Hansen Society web site says students were grouped by their "hearing and spiritual abilities," this is probably a mistranslation of Danish or German where the word for spirit is also used to refer to cognition. In German, Geisteswissenschaft looks like it means ghost/spirit science, but it really means cognitive science.) Hansen was also one of the first educators to recognize stages of development in children.
More about Hansen:
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| How to make GIANT posters on your printerFound this on Neatorama. Free online software that lets you print large posters out of many
regular-sized pieces of paper. Looks like fun, and would be useful in a
classroom/school, as long as kids don't get to see the name of the
program. Would get lots of parent calls on that one.... Rasterbator.
They could have called it Pixelgiant or something. Tho that somehow
makes me think of a cute elephant. Anyway, what giant poster/printed
mural would you make?? There, Muralmaker could have been its name...
I wonder if you can use coloring book pages or paint by number images...
And then make biiigggg ones? Heh. You can use any image at all...
(though it would be wise to use non-copyrighted images).
Could could be useful for low vision people, or people who want to be
able to see their wall art first thing in the morning before putting
their glasses on.  
Check out the gallery of cool home-made giant posters. Enjoy!
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| What are the best Deaf schools?
A look at BiBi programs for teachers and students
Hello everyone out there. I'd like your opinions. What are the best schools (or programs) for deaf students in America? And, what criteria do you use to make your choices? I went looking online for others' opinions on this matter. Ridor said he planned to post a "best deaf schools" list, but seems to have never gotten around to it. There's a forum topic on alldeaf.com on the topic, in which several people say that the BiBi schools are the best.
Along those lines, here's the info I found online about BiBi programs -- which schools for the deaf are BiBi focused, and which teacher training programs prepare teachers for BiBi schools.
Deaf Ed Teacher Prep programs that list their philosophy as bilingual/bicultural on deafed.net(note: some programs -- which may be bibi programs -- did not specify their philosophy for this list) - University of California, San Diego
- University of Hawai'i at Manoa
- McDaniel College
- Boston University
- Western Oregon University
- Utah State University, Logan
CAEBER Preservice Training: Star Online ProjectAccording to CAEBER's web site, "Seven universities currently use the curriculum from online courses:
- Gallaudet University
- Lamar University
- McDaniel College
- Western Oregon University
- University of Tulsa
- California State University, Northridge
- University of Hawaii
Two universities, Gallaudet University and Lamar University, utilize the full online components while the other universities use parts of the online components and online curriculum as meets their needs." Note: This info is from the previous
CAEBER site at NMSD. CAEBER is now part of the of the VL2 project at Gallaudet.
CAEBER Inservice Training: 2-Year Professional Development InserviceWhich schools send their staff to be trained by CAEBER? Schools for the Deaf involved with CAEBER's ASL English Bilingual Professional Development (AEBPD) Model in Deaf Education (as listed at http://ksdeaf.org/starschools.shtml) - New Mexico School for the Deaf
- Illinois School for the Deaf
- Texas School for the Deaf
- Alabama School for the Deaf
- Kendall Demonstration Elementary School
- Kentucky School for the Deaf
- California School for the Deaf, Riverside
- Wisconsin School for the Deaf
- Minnesota Academy for the Deaf
- Jean Massieu Academy
- American School for the Deaf
- Metro Deaf School
- Kansas School for the Deaf
Comments?What programs are missing from these lists? What programs should be removed from this list? Why? Looking forward to reading your answers. | | |
| Deaf Space -- and Deafblind Space at Gally
EDIT: To the Deafread.com readers... This was the first time I submitted a blog post to Deafread, and I didn't do it exactly right... The title of the post should be "Deaf
Space -- and Deafblind Space at Gally" instead of the name of my blog
site. And I did check "hearing" but the box came up orange anyway. So
now you know, I'm a hearing ally in the Deaf and Deafblind communities, and a recent Gally graduate.
:) Nice to meet ya! --------------
Vision-centric, 3-D ways of designing spaces would make it easier for people to take in the scene visually and communicate visually with fewer obstacles. But I'm concerned that some of the innovative, visually nifty ways of designing spaces may conflict with one type of Deaf way of being: the Deafblind/Usher way of being.
So, to the Deaf Space researchers, designers, and architects:
I don't know the exact details on what features are being planned for SLCC (or other "Deaf space" buildings). I hope you all take into consideration the fact that Gallaudet is also Deafblind space. Please pay attention to issues of glare, dim lighting, oddly shaped travelling spaces such as walls, halls, or walking paths inside rooms. Bright light is painful for many people with vision loss. Dim lighting makes it hard or impossible for people with Usher Syndrome (probably the most common cause of deafblindness in the Gallaudet community) or poor night vision to see enough to navigate or communicate visually.
Strangely shaped physical landscapes can make it hard for somone to use their tunnel vision and/or a white cane to safely navigate to where they want to walk. For example, some clueless sighted architect designed the main inner wall in one of the main buildings at the Minnesota State Academy for the Blind as a visually-pleasing, innovative - yet totally blind-UNfriendly extremely wavy carpeted surface. This makes is useless for trailing the wall with one's hand or cane to cross that room - the normal way one would use a wall to navigate. So all the students have to walk through empty space to get where they're going, without the aid of physical landmarks to guide their path. This is just a reminder that something that "looks" innovative and pretty may, in fact, be the least accessible way you could have designed it, for an important segment of our community.
Now is the time to make Gallaudet and the surrounding area much more in tune with Deafblind Space, too. Thanks.
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