NAD Call for Workshop and Commission Presentations (Philadelphia) (Corrected)
Call for Workshop and Commission Presentations
The National Association of the Deaf (NAD) is seeking proposals for exciting, informative and forward-looking education, training and public policy presentations at the 50th Biennial NAD Conference to be held at the Philadelphia Marriott-Downtown hotel, July 6-10, 2010 in Philadelphia, PA. The conference theme is “Celebrate Our Heritage. Invest in Our Future.”
Conference Attendees
Workshop and Commission Tracks
For the first time, we will have issues-oriented commission tracks that are geared to national trends, challenges, opportunities and recommendations that can advance the public policy efforts of the NAD. Focus on issues-oriented tracks are tied to the mission of the NAD which is to preserve, protect and promote the civil, human and linguistic rights of deaf and hard of hearing people in the USA.
Workshop and commission presentations should also be tied to the principles of self-determination, self-representation and self-expression which resulted in the establishment of the NAD in 1880 and guides its work to this day.
Workshop Tracks
- Grassroots Advocacy
- Economic Empowerment
- Technologies for Everyday Life
- Youth Leadership
- Additional Areas of Interest
Commission Tracks
- Civil & Employment Rights
- Educational Rights
- Health & Human Rights
- Linguistic Rights
- Technological Rights
Screening and Selection Process
Workshop and commission proposals are selected on the basis of overall quality and relevance in addition to the three C’s (clarity, conciseness and completeness) by conference screening committees knowledgeable in content areas for all tracks. Proposals should offer content that is interesting to a variety of attendees and promotes audience participation (workshops) or elevates awareness on advocacy issues of national importance (commissions). Past evaluations show that attendees prefer presentations that are relevant, interactive and forward-looking.
Proposals that are accepted for one-hour (60 minute) presentation slots will be scheduled with careful attention to conference program balance, starting at 1:30 pm on Wednesday, July 7, 2010 and ending at 4:00 pm on Saturday, July 10, 2010. Prospective presenters should be prepared to present during this timeframe, as assigned by the conference scheduling committee.
Please understand that we cannot accept all proposals that are submitted. Proposals that are not clear, specific, or complete will not be considered. Presentations that market specific products or services are not permitted; the Exhibit Hall is available for this purpose.
All presentation proposals must by submitted online, using the required form. Prospective presenters are encouraged to prepare their own MS Word files and then copy/paste content to the online form to prevent accidental loss of information.
Presenter Requirements
Approved presenters are required to bring their own PC-compatible USB flash drive containing MS Office content for visual presentation and they must be prepared to describe presentation content fully to ensure accessibility. Videos that are displayed during presentations must be open-captioned. CART and interpreting services in addition to LCDs, PC laptops loaded with MS Office and projection screens will be provided for all workshops and commissions. Presentation handouts must be provided in hard copy as well as accessible format; the NAD will provide guidance in this regard. Approved primary and co-presenters are required to pre-register (active NAD membership is encouraged) for the conference by May 15, 2010, and are responsible for their own travel and accommodations. For conference registration specifics, click here.
Important Deadlines
Notification of approval – March 31, 2010
Pre-registration deadline – May 15, 2010
Contact
Submit Your Proposal Now!
Click here to submit your online workshop or commission proposal.
Or copy and paste the following link:
http://www.nad.org/philly/proposals
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Silver Spring, MD 20910-3819
United States
- Thanks to NAD.
Happy New Year!
Happy New Year!!
-DHHSC
Now Hear This: Swim-Proof Hearing Aids to Get Test
HEALTHBEAT: Newer generations of hearing aids promise improvements from swimming to Bluetooth
By LAURAN NEERGAARD AP Medical Writer
WASHINGTON December 28, 2009 (Associated Press) – From ABC News
Illustration shows how ear implant works (AP)
They’re not your grandpa’s hearing aids.
Today’s newest models range from the completely invisible — it sits deep in the ear canal for months at a time — to Bluetooth-enabled gadgets that open cell phones and iPods for hearing-aid users.
Now the maker of that invisible hearing aid is going a step further — attempting a swim-proof version. About 60 swimmers begin testing a next-generation Lyric next month, to see if stronger coatings can withstand at least three swims a week, allowing the device to repel the water that short-circuits regular hearing aids.
If so, expect to see it marketed to active seniors who increasingly find the pool a gentler form of exercise than pounding the pavement.
“It’s my preferred exercise,” says Kathy Burkhard, 62, of San Jose, Calif., who is anxiously awaiting the results. She already swims with her Lyrics, her ears bundled against the water with special earplugs, a water-resistant headband and a racer’s cap. “I do it well and I enjoy it and I wasn’t ready to give it up.”
It’s part of a quiet revolution in hearing technology, to increase the usefulness and comfort of devices that too many people still shun.
“Stigma is one of the biggest obstacles we face,” says Dr. John P. Weigand, audiology director at the State University of New York’s Downstate Medical Center.
More than 30 million adults in the U.S. have some degree of hearing loss. The National Institutes of Health says most could be treated with hearing aids yet only about one in five people who could benefit uses them.
Why? Many people simply don’t know, or accept, that they need one. Hearing loss can come at any age, from disease or genetics or not protecting your ears from loud noise. But it becomes more common with aging; federal statistics show one in three people older than 60 have hearing loss. And it can creep up, as often people first lose the ability to hear higher pitch before they notice wider problems.
Complete story: http://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory?id=9435454
- Thanks to Bob MacPherson and NVRC, Fairfax
More on Internet Captioning: 22frames.com
TDI Executive Director Claude Stout, an NVRC News reader, sent some additional information about 22frames.com and its exciting index of Internet captioning after we reported on Hulu.com’s captioning search feature on 12/21/09. 22frames is in beta version right now.
About 22frames.com – From Their “About Us” Page
The World Health Organization estimates 278 million people worldwide have some form of hearing impairment.
A Nielsen study suggests that there has been over a 300 percent increase in online video watching since 2003. Further, most watching is done during work hours. Workplace computers are often muted or have no speakers.
Several billions of videos are watched monthly worldwide, with many of them in different languages.
22frames indexes captioned videos from all over the Internet. The web offers a world of quality videos for our enjoyment and enlightenment. However, for a large population of Internet users* who are unable to hear, understand, or enable the audio content of videos, finding ones to watch can be a pain**. Captioned and subtitled videos are an answer; however, they are generally scattered and/or mixed with all other videos across the Internet. Up until now, there was no central place to easily and reliably search for and discover such videos across multiple video hosts.
22frames was built, in part, to provide such a place. In turn, an additionally important goal is to drive significant traffic to caption/subtitle friendly video hosts and creators.
By continually indexing videos from these multiple hosts, this site offers an increasingly comprehensive catalog covering many different topics. Indexing is mostly automated using APIs and specialized web crawlers. User submissions of videos and channels also play an important role.
22frames is more than captions.Captioned videos are not the only kinds of videos that are easy to watch without audio. Take a look at these diverse examples without listening to them:
There is such a considerable number of quality videos like the above being posted on popular link-sharing and community sites that we include them in our search results when relevant. On the right of this and other pages, you can even find links for viewing videos and reading comments shared on sites like Digg and Reddit. 22frames also links to captioned versions of videos shared on such sites as they are discovered.
If you have/run such a site and you would like to integrate our accessibility features with it, contact us. Members of your site can use these features to avoid mining through pages of community submissions to specifically find videos that are easy to watch without audio.
Including these special types of non-captioned videos is pretty experimental, but it makes sense not to ignore them in a service like this. To include these videos in your search results, make sure to choose this option . To omit them, choose the caption-only option .
You can imagine that a big challenge in supporting this unique feature is how to automatically detect and index videos without having a human listen to each one. There are just too many videos and several are being produced daily. Without getting into too much techie jargon, we can say that our current approach mainly involves some clever coding and training of a multimedia analysis platform called Infinite Ears. We currently support this specific feature on Youtube videos, and we will move to other hosts as more improvements are made. Please help us flag videos that do not fit so we can speed up these improvements.
When this site was nothing more than idea, someone said it would be “a kind of Silent Film 2.0.” This comment, in fact, led to the name 22frames. FYI: During the silent film era, films were often shot at rates anywhere between 16 and 23 frames per second. 22 sounded the coolest to us, and here we are!
- Thanks to NVRC, Fairfax
17 Misconceptions about People with Hearing Loss
By: Janice Schacter
NVRC Note: Janice is one of our NVRC e-news subscribers. See her full article in Hearing Health Magazine at
http://www.drf.org/magazine/38/Winter+2010+Issue/article/309
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Misconceptions about people who are deaf or hard of hearing are common place – some antiquated stereotypes, others are just incorrect assumptions. It’s easy enough to get the wrong idea as hearing loss can be an invisible disability – unlike the wheelchair that signals a mobility challenge. Whether it’s a total stranger trying to make small talk in sign language or a overly slowly articulating coworker or relative, it’s time we initiated the conversation that will correct misconceptions and remove the stigma associated with deafness and hearing loss. This list of the more common misconceptions there are many more – can be a good starting point for that conversation.
1 EVERYONE WITH HEARING LOSS USES SIGN LANGUAGE AND READS LIPS.
Hearing loss spans across a spectrum from mild to completely deaf and not all people with hearing loss communicate the same way. Communication depends on a variety of factors, such as the degree of hearing loss, whether a hearing aid or cochlear implant is used, the age at which the person lost their hearing, the level of auditory training received, and the nature of the listening situation. The majority of people with hearing loss do not use sign language but it is still important to those whose communication depends on it.
American Sign Language is a visual language with its own syntax and grammar that is quite different from spoken and written English. Sign language varies by country as well. A person with some knowledge of sign language is not a substitute for a qualified interpreter who is trained to transmit what is said clearly and accurately.
Some people with hearing loss read lips and others do not. Lip reading, also called speech reading, is most helpful as a supplement to residual hearing, even though many speech sounds are not visible on the lips. It does help to face the person with hearing loss when speaking. Many people can pick up visual clues even if they are not proficient at lip reading.
Janice Schacter is an accomplished advocate across the hearing advocacy and related political spectrum. She founded the Hearing Access Program in 2002. It is the only organization dedicated to helping the world’s corporations, cultural and entertainment institutions, government agencies and mass transit organizations improve their accessibility for people with hearing loss. Contact Janice at Jschacter@nyc.rr.com.
This article was developed in consultation with people and organizations representing people with hearing loss.
- Thanks to NVRC, Fairfax
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