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Friday, October 16, 2009 a Local Halloween Event!
September 29th, 2009, 11:53 am by HanaHello all!
October is nearly upon us; Thursday will be October 1st, and that begins a month of Halloween-esque displays, events and advertising.
Marysville NorCal Services for Deaf and Hard of Hearing is throwing their annual event. This year it is based on the Addams’ Family with a mystery scavenger hunt. The folks running the mystery scavenger hunt will be dressed as the Addams Family for your entertainment. 
When: Friday, October 16, 2009
Time: 6pm - 9pm
Where: Boyd Hall
Address: 1895 Lassen Ave. Yuba City, CA 95993
Cost: $10 per adult, $5 per child.
Come in your Halloween costume and enjoy some interesting Halloween themed cuisine! There will be interpreters provided so there should not be any lack of communication.
It is recommended you RSVP your tickets because after October 9, it will be cash only. RSVPing will also help the staff provide adequate amounts of food and drinks. All proceedings will go to supporting NorCal’s presence here in Marysville.
Contact Kim Dethlefsen-Koons for tickets.
Hope to see you there!
Click below to download the flyer.
Accents
September 17th, 2009, 4:45 pm by HanaI’m having a new experience with my current online class. I mentioned a while ago that I’m taking classes online and I use real-time captioners in the virtual classroom. It has been working really well up to now.
The problem?
My current teacher, also the only one that teaches this specific class, has a heavy accent. The poor captioner has a lot of difficulty understanding him, and so do other students because I got a couple e-mails from other students who knew me from past classes, if I caught what he said in this or that particular part of the lecture.
I have spoken to my student advisor about this and we’re trying to figure out how to solve this issue. Have you had this issue where you have someone speaking in a heavy accent and your interpreter or real-time captioner is struggling? What do you do? Just read the text and ask the teacher to clarify at points?
Update September 25, 2009. Turns out to be a microphone issue. The department chair got wind of this and investigated. Now the captioner is able to hear better and caption. But what I find funny is that my hearing counterparts in the class, are also using the captioning services to understand the lectures done online.
September 19
September 15th, 2009, 11:34 am by HanaSaturday, September 19 is Deaf Awareness Day at the Sacramento Zoo. I wrote about it earlier here.
NorCal Services for Deaf and Hard of Hearing has a flyer up detailing information on Deaf Awareness Day at the Sacramento Zoo.
There are discounts for attendees, purchase made at the Zoofari Market and medium sized beverage. However, pets and service animals are not allowed in the zoo. There will be ASL interpreters all over the zoo for your convenience.
Go and have fun! 
Upcoming Event in October
August 27th, 2009, 12:54 pm by Hana
The Outreach Advisory Commitee (OAC — the volunteer group that works to support Marysville NorCal Services for Deaf and Hard of Hearing) is gearing up for the Halloween event in October. A flyer will be coming out by the end of this week or next week with details of when, where and what.
Are you ready for Halloween fun? Last year, we did a series of games based on “The Price is Right” and the year before that, we did “Let’s Make a Deal.”
It appears this year’s theme is An Addams Family Mystery Scavenger Hunt.
Deaf Class at Crossroads Community Church
August 3rd, 2009, 9:02 am by Hana Every Sunday morning at 11 AM, Arlene Artwood-Noteman is teaching Deaf Class at the Crossroads Community church.
Online Captioning May Be Coming Here
July 28th, 2009, 11:46 am by HanaI wanted to mention real quick that I got a response from our corporate on having captioning capability included on our Brightcove videos that we offer here on www.appeal-democrat.com and www.colusa-sun-herald.com, and any Freedom Communications Inc. property using Brightcove. Brightcove is our vendor for Internet videos on Freedom Communications Inc. properties. They are working to develop a timetable to deploy the feature on Brightcove videos.
While this means an ability to caption videos easily on the Brightcove platform, individual submitters like the everyday web site visitor, is not required to do this. The pending Bill which would mandate captioning of videos, applies only to the public realm on the Internet — news, television episodes, movies. It does not apply to the private individual who is submitting an Internet video.
Regardless, this feature should make it easier for folks to add captioning to their Internet videos.
More about Captioning Online
July 8th, 2009, 10:36 am by HanaI’m feeling hopeful today.
I spent about 30 minutes yesterday writing a personal letter to my representative here, to co-sponsor or at least support the Bill which I blogged about yesterday. I also heard from my very good friend in Minnesota this morning, that she wrote to her representative Al Franken, to support the Bill as well. She’s not deaf or hard of hearing — she did it because she believes that I, as well as others, should get the same access that hearing people do when viewing Internet videos. I also e-mailed and texted some of my Deaf friends to notice this and support the Bill. I got an e-mail from a hard of hearing friend, who said that she “firmly believe that all news videos should be captioned. This not only serves deaf and hard of hard of hearing but people learning to read English.” when I asked her if she thought that the Internet videos we offer online, should be captioned regardless of the length.
I just sent an e-mail to our corporate’s video lead this morning, about seriously considering adding captions to our Internet videos. I’m waiting to see how that goes. I mentioned the Bill, that there was technology already available for captioning Internet videos, and that we had attempted our hand at manually captioning a few here. I believe that if captions were included, there would be more page views and that the deaf and hard of hearing in the Yuba-Sutter would feel less excluded. I’ve yet to download and try out the Media Access Generator (MAGpie) which I saw yesterday. Just need to clear some time to do that in between the 20+ projects we have.
All we can do is step forth and see what happens.
Close Captioned Online
July 7th, 2009, 10:12 am by HanaA new bill in Congress, the 21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act of 2009, seeks to make it mandatory to provide closed captioned online and make Internet more accessible to the deaf and others who rely on captioning. The Act can be read here: COAT Web site.Within this article are links to contacting representative Ed Markey and Senators to support the bill. The link for signing the petition to support the bill is here: Petition to Support the Bill. Additionally, there is a group on Facebook named Caption Action 2: Internet Captioning that seeks to gather members to show and send support of this Act to our Representatives and Senators. The Act was introduced on June 26, 2009 and the word needs to go out that it is available and needs to be supported.
I’m for this because I’ve been watching shows online since they began appearing on the Internet. I rarely watch TV because I’m always on the computer, plus it’s easier to watch shows in sequel online because places like Hulu organize them into episodes. Although iTunes, Hulu and Google have been working to provide captioned videos on their web sites, it’s still inadequate because it’s purely voluntary. There is no requirement legally binding companies to provide their videos with captioning included, online. Show your support today and have your voice counted!
Why have captioning? Nowadays, televisions are mandated by the Telecommunications Act in 1996 to have closed captioning available. This needs to also be passed into shows and movies on the Internet. Please support the 21st Century Communications and Video accessibility Act of 2009.
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What do you do…
July 1st, 2009, 2:43 pm by HanaThis is for deaf and hard of hearing people out there who speak as their form of communication with their hearing counterparts. What do you do if you get interrupted by a hearing person who does not realize you are speaking to another hearing person?
For example, I’m talking to my hearing co-worker who sits next to me, and there is a pause as I wait for a response from him. My co-worker needs to think about his response because he’s weighting his options. During this pause, another hearing co-worker walks in and begins talking to my hearing co-worker. What would you do? I’m curious what your response is.
I know that sometimes a deaf or hard of hearing person would just back down and come back later. But once in a while, you might do what I just did … I said, “I was talking to him first. Please wait your turn!”
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Contacting Hana
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