Like many of you, I had followed the news about the controversial appointment and firing of Gallaudet University's future president. What I didn't realize until I read Brock Read's Chronicle of Higher Education article, At Gallaudet U., Technology and Influential Blogs Helped Galvanize Protests http://chronicle.com/daily/2006/11/2006110102n.htm was the enormous influence of technologies on that decision. Using blogging, text messaging, instant messaging,smartphones, and video-sharing sites, Gallaudet students demonstrated the power of new Web. 2.0 applications to influence public opinion and to stay informed.
Read notes that "nearly every Gallaudet student owns a digital device -- like a Blackberry or a Sidekick, a beefed-up cellphone." And according to Bobbie Beth Scoggins, president of the National Association of the Deaf, "Technology has allowed us to be completely in power in this situation." Through
Throughout the crisis, students avidly read and fed information to the blogs of Ricky Taylor, a Gallaudet graduate RidorLIVE http://www.ridorlive.com/, and Elizabeth Gillespie, a former Gallaudet professor who used the pseudonym "Mishka Zena" http://mishkazena.wordpress.com/. Gallaudet student blogs such as Elisa Abenchuchan's Gallaudet Protests http://www.elisawrites.com/ also kept the student body, faculty and administration informed on the thoughts and feelings related to the new president-elect.
Last May when the president-elect was announced, students circumvented the prohibition on bringing camcorders to the event by using their Sidekicks and digital cameras to film the proceedings. And of course the video was made instantly available on YouTube (now part of Google).
For those of you (like me) who hadn't heard about the Sidekicks smartphone, it seems to be the mobile phone of choice for users who are hearing or speech impaired according to Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danger_Hiptop#Usage_by_the_Deaf_and_hearing-impaired.
It is sold through T-Mobile who describes the Sidekick as the "ultimate communication device, featuring e-mail, messaging, Web browsing, camera, as well as full voice service."
