Ben Fletcher

If a guide in the form of a dog can travel for free, so...
Ben Fletcher I was talking with a friend today, he's got a severe case of visual and hearing loss, meaning he needs support to travel. There's a scheme called Direct Payments, that enables him to pay for someone to be his guide (normally around £7.50 an hour) to gets around – e.g., to keep well, to shop, [...]
Thu, Jul 08 2010

Save Deaf Studies
Ben Fletcher Bristol and, in particular, Deaf people around the world, is losing one of its best gem and light. Save Deaf Studies video That video rather very British Sign Language, I struggle to translate into written English, however there's a lot of background to this video on the Save Deaf Studies website. Please visit.
Fri, May 21 2010

The Big Wow Factor: Tactile Computer
Ben Fletcher For blind and, in particular, deafblind people, this has so much potential! and also for people with varous learning difficulties – e.g., stroke. Morphing Computer for the Blind For the rest of us, this is just as exciting – imagine feeling things using our hands instead of our eyes and/or ears!
Wed, Feb 24 2010

London Barcamp 7
Ben Fletcher Put simply, the best unconference I've attended so far! The idea behind unconferences is best explained by a collaborative “Conference vs. Unconference” table here: [link] such as “content planning” versus “content facilitation”, “wisdom of experts” versus “wisdom of crowds”, “panels” vers...
Tue, Oct 27 2009

How to sign integrate, integrator, integration, and...
Ben Fletcher (A signed video about this post.) At my work, it is sometimes essential that a specific meaning of a verb is emphasised.  The question is: how can the sign language interpreter distinguish between “integration” and “integrator”, for example? The technique used in British Sign Language is to adopt the sign to reflect the specific meaning - for [...
Tue, Apr 28 2009

Training the Interpreter
Ben Fletcher A job of mine is to provide my interpreters with some idea of what context they'll be interpreting in. A colleague at work developed a visualisation tool called Wordle with which I can copy and paste some text and, like magic, come out a “word cloud”. To give you an example, with text [...]
Sun, Dec 28 2008

Why deaf organisations should look to Facebook
Ben Fletcher (A signed video about this post.) I have a possible vision for a national deaf organisation. A quick glance at the list of messages on a “deaf” egroup tells me that there are many people who just don't think on the same wavelength as each other - which can be counterproductive to making progress on common issues. Fact [...]
Mon, Dec 22 2008

Dear Deaf in America - Captioning Technology
Ben Fletcher Dear fellow Deafies, I have more American contributions to this blog than any other country - and I'd very much value your input. Take this picture: Does the caption in the photo above make any sense? (No, it does not!) I have 21 further photos and videos showing more poor captioning (we call it subtitling in the UK) in [...]
Sat, Dec 20 2008

The Small Chats
Ben Fletcher I'm told, although being deaf, I can't promise this is true, that there is the concept known as “small talk” like this: Small Talk Practice 2: At the Office that happens in the office that I, to be sociable, am supposed to overhear and get involved with! Emergency! I'm deaf, I don't get to hear the small talk? Twitter [...]
Tue, Dec 02 2008

A New Film
Ben Fletcher I thought I'd have some fun tonight! Inspired by Charlie Swinbourne I had a go at being an amatuer (not that Charlie is these days!) film maker. Here's the 3 hours worth of effort, which will be on YouTube shortly...
Thu, Nov 20 2008

Airbourne Tactile Display
Ben Fletcher In the evening yesterday over at Portcullis House, Westminister, we were lobbying for better provision for deaf people to communicate with hearing people over the phone and Internet. The BBC picked this up here - incidentally today BBC also interviewed me with 13 questions here. It was great to see SignVideo and Teletec demonstrating high [...]
Fri, Oct 17 2008

First experience as a Brit in the USA (ASL)
Ben Fletcher You may choose one of the language options above. Signed is a signed video of the post. Subtitled is the same but with subtitles. Transcript is a transcript of the post. Feel free to put in a comment with your verdict of this 3-part post. I'm continuing to learn ASL. Hello. Four years ago I flew from England to America and [...]
Fri, Sep 19 2008

SignVideo
Ben Fletcher You may choose one of the language options above. Signed is a signed video of the post. Subtitled is the same but with subtitles. Transcript is a transcript of the post. For more about SignVideo, have a look at their bilingual website. AtW is short for Access to Work run by the government. Hello. Today I'm very excited because I've just [...]
Fri, Sep 19 2008

Name Signs
Ben Fletcher This BSL video is in response to Charlie Swinbourne's great What's your Sign Name? article (in English with a BSL video and photos).
Fri, Sep 19 2008

Location Aware Messaging for Accessibility
Ben Fletcher I imagine myself arriving at a train station somewhere random in Sydney.  I am a citizen who is: deaf without speech (hearing impaired); and partially blind (visually impaired). What to do? Here is a demonstration of a small Proof of Concept. The top two-thirds of the screen shows the map of the station. The bottom one-third contains the text [...]
Fri, Sep 19 2008