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Page history last edited by Jim Allan 15 years, 11 months ago

Welcome to the John Slatin Impact Planning Wiki!!

 

Hi all, on Thursday morning, April 10th,  Anna Carroll, Sharron Rush, Jim Thatcher, and Jim Allan had a brainstroming session about how to set up a larger brainstorming session to discuss what to do to carry on John's work...something with impact. This wiki will be our planning vehicle and group think space.

Let the dance begin ....

 

Ideas! - What we need are ideas, thoughts, musings ... please contribute

 

For those who want to comment please login using the following:

login: johncommenter@yahoo.com

password: speakingnow

 

Comments (5)

annac@... said

at 5:47 pm on Apr 11, 2008

Hi there!!! Love to all of you. Thanks so much, Sharron, Jim, and Jim and also to a few people I've mentioned this to when I saw them--Peter Slatin, Katie-Haritos Shea, Peg Syverson, Rebecca Farr, and Pam Scott--and probably others. Certainly, we want more of you to be involved. But anyone who's too busy or doesn't want to be involved---please, please please don't feel in any way obligated. Also there's no set amount of involvement. Really it's just sharing ideas at this point.

The goal is to figure out how to best carry John's unique "mission" forward. Of course the hardest part is to figure out which specific mission that would be:)--Of course it will be related to accessibility but can end up taking on a form that's academic, artistic, technological, creating a new organization or linking into an existing one, providing education, sponsoring disabled people, artists, developers, etc, etc, etc. I can personally offer my skills with communication, facilitation, and/or some financial help if I can be of help to this process.

First, we wanted to find the best Saturday we can--for those who can to meet face to face here in Austin, say from 10-4 or so (plus socializing). I am available May 4,11,25 & 31 and June 7, 14 & 21. This can be as few or many as want to be involved. Then we would let the international discussion percolate. We can also start the discussion percolating here, talk more about it here and continue it later.

Then we would continue the discussion online, involving people who want to be involved and can contribute to this goal.

I think we need to discuss (both online and in person)
1) What were John's most unique and high-impact contributions in the world
2) How best to move this work/play forward
3) What would the individual participants in this conversation LOVE to help with, accomplish personally in their involvement

I am open to all ideas and willing to change even some of the thoughts I wrote above.
Love, Anna

Katie Haritos-Shea said

at 8:01 pm on Apr 14, 2008

As I told Anna about brainstorming......relative to me..........I have a lot of storms in my brain - but I wouldn't exactly say that this is useful for coming up with ideas. I am just throwing out one that eventually came to me as a topic - just an idea.........

POSSIBLE TOPIC:

I did have an idea about one thing that could be discussed as far as continuing John's contibution relative to WCAG 2 work.

Currently there is (yet another) alt text debate taking place as a heated battle on W3C mailing lists. It is concerning alt text not being required in the new HTML 5 spec - and how the HTML 5 spec should (or should not) be following WCAG 2 principles.

To start: we would have to know John's position, if he had stated one. I do not have the specific details, nor the exact knowledge, because I have not been following it too closely - but, others in Accessibility who are John's friends have.

What I do think is.....that IF the HTML 5 spec has the potential to reverse the use of alt text by web authors, than this is a major step backwards in Accessibility - and possibly a place where John might have had a say.


MEETING:

If I can call in or attend virtually for your meeting I will try to make whatever Sat meeting you have it.

Rebecca said

at 9:01 pm on Apr 15, 2008

Since it's brainstorming, I'm just going to go for it... I'd like to see a John Slatin Foundation or Chair or grant program. My specialty and experience are in computing, so John and I talked a lot about accessibility. Not at the HTML spec level, but more at the user interface level such as what a pain it was to use the new UT system for getting your voicemail and email and other stuff all through the same web inerface. I think there is a lot of potential for getting funding agencies to grant money for cross discipline studies such as comuter science and English department or the Accessibility Instute or whatever... As baby boomers are now at an age to decide where to bestow their money, they might as well bestow it this way. I think UT has a Dean of Grants or something like that. I wonder if anyone inside UT who was working with John knows about this system. Or if Anna met them at a social gathering? Anyway, I was thinking kind of big. for a while I worked in this huge department at UT called the Waggoner Center for Alcohol and Addiction Research. A family donated money for that who had an interest in that topic. There must be money out there, if we could get some help finding it, to really fund some serious research, millions for say a center with 15 faculty, 30 grad students and supporting staff, labs, computers, to do the studies and publish research results to really make the internet accessible. Some other brainstorming... check out this danceeability photo gallery: http://www.danceability.com/images/DancAbilGallery/FrameSet.htm

and also this from Dean Kamen who made the segway wheeled gyroscopic platform you lean on to make it go a direction, 6 wheeled wheelchairs that climb stairs... If we could partner or get grants from somebody big like this, etc... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dean_Kamen

(cut here - exceeded max characters)

annac@... said

at 2:50 am on Apr 16, 2008

Thanks so much everyone!!! I am already excited and can't wait to hear more. I am now inspired by Rebecca to think big too. Just to clarify, John was the Director of UT's Accessibility Institute, reporting to the Provost's office. He did this 75% of his time and for the other 25%, had appointments as professor in the English and Rhetoric and Composition Departments where he taught a graduate seminar one semester a year. Kay Baker, PhD now is the only full time employee in the Accessibility Institute (due to budget cuts in past years) and she does usability testing for people with disabilities. Hope you can join in, Kay. Also UT has a huge development office and John and Kay had a person assigned to their organization. We can find out who this is. Love, Anna

John Commenter said

at 12:29 pm on Apr 20, 2008

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