Reaction paper to deaf culture and/or issues

Reaction Paper to Deaf Culture and/or Issues

Technology in the Right Hands Offers New Hope A recent article appeared in the Associated Press d ” Handheld Technology Mobilized Protests at School for Deaf People”. The author, Lubna Takruri, recounted the organizing efforts of the students of Gallaudet University in their recent protests to unseat incoming President Jane K. Fernandes. The deaf students exploited the technology of text messaging to create an environment of instant communications. The author reported that the messages “[…] spread like a virus, reaching hundreds on campus, who then relayed them to thousands of people and spread them on to deaf-focused Web journals and other Web sites”. The protests, aided by handheld mobile communications devices, were successful in their goal of eliminating Fernandes as President. A few years ago this would not have been possible. The technology that aided the students was able to catapult the need to organize into a highly efficient system of cooperation.
The devices, mostly Blackberries and Sidekicks, provided the deaf students with the instantaneous reaction and response that was necessary to carry out the movement. With this resource the students were very adept at relaying messages and focusing their efforts. T-Mobile has realized the value of these devices to the deaf as they have offered a data only subscription to their existing cellular network. Beyond the obvious use of technology to solve a problem, it also highlighted the phenomena of necessity creating excellence. Hearing students have the same technology available, but would not have reached the organizational extent that the deaf students did. This must have come as some surprise to the administration and university officials.
It would be easy to assume that the deaf students would act with a certain degree of timidity. In the past, deaf students were faced with the obstacle of uniting with the difficulty of the speed of traditional communications. As Christopher Corrigan, a 20-year-old junior, says, ” Without the pagers we would have to have people running to the dorms to get people”. Yet when technology availed itself, the deaf community was able to put it to work and gain its maximum value. Hearing students would probably not have been able to focus their efforts any more precisely than the deaf students did. Technology that is taken for granted often ends up misused or neglected. In the case of the deaf students, their challenge necessitated that they appreciate and use the technology to its fullest extent.
What other technologies are lying dormant and neglected out of complacency? Warning devices on automobiles that detect traffic or sense the distance to the nearest parked car may have an opportunity to be used by people in new and creative ways. It could possibly lead to a system where a blind person could drive an automobile. Only by placing the technology in the hands of the challenged can we discover the limits of its use. Hearing people have had cellular phones for decades and still have only scratched the surface of their value.
Though organizing an event or protest by the use of handheld communications is not new, the need of the deaf students cast it into a new light of efficiency. The silent and generally timid group has been awakened by the wireless socialization of the instant text message system. They did not take it for granted or underestimate its value. Faced with a need and a technology, the students rose to a new level of sophistication. They exploited its use and in doing so brought new hope for the community of the deaf as well as other similarly challenged groups.
References
Takruri, L. (2006, November 8). Handheld technology mobilized protests at school for deaf people. Associated Press. Retrieved November 10, 2006, from LexisNexis.