A Yippeee moment!

In March 2008 I posted about how I word process by connecting my Pathfinder to my laptop with a serial cable and sending whole words.

http://michaelreedsblog.blogspot.com/2008/03/writing-with-aac-part-1.html

My laptop broke in May and the software that makes it work is not compatible with our Vista or Mac computers. Wish I'd bought an XP laptop instead, but I counted on the LA replacing the broken one. They did, in October, but they disabled so many features I can't print, go on Internet, save the memory from my Pathfinder in case it breaks, word process from my Pathfinder, or save a data log from it, and they've disabled the speech output in Writing With Symbols and made it so I can't save a Grid or even any changes to my wordlist.

Are they trying to gag me?

Anyway, while we decide which machine to buy next, Durham Clayport library has loaned me an XP machine and I'm back online!

I have to much to write about to s-p-e-l-l--- i-t---a-l-l---o-u-t---l-e-t-t-e-r---b-y---l-e-t-t-e-r

Janitor Rap

This animation was made for me in 2004/05 but we didn't release it then because one of the last lines says "I could have been more than a Janitor, if they'd taught me More Core" and we wanted everyone to know what we mean by 'Core' first.

'Core Words' or 'High Frequency Words' are a set of around 400 common words that everybody says every day. They include the National Literacy Strategy Words.

Imagine you can't talk but you have a communication aid with all these words on it, stored under keyboard shortcuts, but no one at school teaches you the shortcuts or how to read and write. You can't talk to your friends much and your chances of doing something interesting at college aren't very good.

Well that's what happened to me.

I am campaigning for people with communication disabilities to be given a way to say these words, and to be taught how to read and write them. The Princess Diana Award and Radiowaves are helping me make my campaign go national this summer.

17 Feb: LD Parliament: UNCRPD

The UK Government has not yet ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, UNCRPD, and we have just had a letter from ALLFIE, the Alliance for Inclusive Education, telling us that the Government is trying to opt out of Article 24, on equal education.

I read ALLFIE's letters to the North East Learning Disability Service User Parliament at today's meeting (17 February 2009) and members signed the petition to Gordon Brown.

I have written more about it and put three movie clips on the Diana Award Channel here:

http://www.radiowaves.co.uk/story/43493

December, January, February

I ended up doing 3 movie projects with Engage TV, the ones at Percy Hedley and with the LD Parliament, and a 3-minute documentary about me.

December we had discos and pantos, meals out, quad biking, Xmas...

January I did a project with the Diana Award and Radiowaves. I learned how to podcast and do interviews and how to campaign. I was given the choice of joining one of the Diana campaigns like anti-bullying or knife crime, or doing a campaign of my own.

I am campaigning for people with communication disabilities to be given a way to say and write the same words that speaking people say every day. We have the technology and the knowledge to make this happen, so why isn't it?

Here's a link to my pages on the Diana Radio Channel:

www.radiowaves.co.uk/r/mbr

5 Dec: A busy day

morning: movie project with LD Parliament and Engage TV.
afternoon: focus group meeting for 'People and Places' art contest.
evening: 'The Xmas Factor' panto workshop with Durham Area Disability Leaisure Group.
night: movie editing

tomoro: panto workshop all day

now: programme some ideas into my talker for tomoro? or sleep?

5 Dec: Lost in Transition

I put a movie of some of my Transition PowerPoint on YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UE45Rnmngw8&feature=channel

4 Dec: MSOV on YouTube

Not the final cut, but some footage from our Many Stories, One Voice workshops. Putting picture in picture is a new skill.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tpv9E97EA9Q