The blog has been moved to a new home with new possibilities and better quality videos. There is a new post about location aware messaging for accessibility:

benfletcher.com

I hope everyone’s well and had a good summer holiday.

For more about SignVideo, have a look at their bilingual website. AtW is short for Access to Work run by the government.

Transcript:

Hello.

Today I’m very excited because I’ve just read
that SignVideo has an understanding with AtW

where AtW can now provide me with funding to
use their services for communication support.

This I am excited about. I’ll explain why.

The current situation is that I have to book
for an interpreter to come onsite at work

which works well but I still have to book
each appointment for a minimum of 3 hours.

This means I have to, sort of, formalise my meetings
by having them fixed and arranged back to back.

Each meeting would usually be half hour or an hour
with colleagues.

The thing is that, although it can work well,
it can be at times inconvenient

as I really like having informal conversations
where I can come to work

and say “hello, how are you?” and have a 5-10
minute quick chat about, for example

how work’s getting on – a short meeting.

With my current interpreting arrangement, this is
not really possible.

The reason is that if you want to use an interpreter,
it has to be for a minimum of 3 hours.

For an informal 10-minute chat at a random time,
this is not possible.

Here is where SignVideo comes in. You can book
an interpreter for only 5 or 10 minutes.

Isn’t this useful?

Additionally, working with people who like to do
do a quick phone call with a brief enquiry -

I can use TypeTalk, but TypeTalk can at times be
a problem – it works but can be… slow and not easy.

SignVideo can be used instead to do phone calls
using two-way sign langauge.

Wonderful service.

For Deaf professionals, it’s important to be able to
network with people, with colleagues at workplace.

This SignVideo service can really help achieve this.

An exciting prospect!

I remember 2 or 3 years ago I met with Jeff and
I was amazed at the possibilities of this service.

We were in Belgium and we

could easily connect to London to communicate with
people there through interpreters from London.

Incredible!

In America this is highly thrieving and very
popular. In the United Kingdom, however

it has been slow with legislation from
the government being unsuitable.

Despite all this, SignVideo has been
doing remarkably well and is growing.

I really hope SignVideo will continue this
growth and reach out to the rest of us.

So if you are a Deaf professional in the
United Kingdom, please give it a try.

You may find you like it and that it can really
enables and empowers you in your job!

That’s it. Goodbye.

I’m continuing to learn ASL.

Subtitled:

Transcript:

Hello.

Four years ago I flew from England to
America and then to Australia.

The reason was that my sister worked in
Australia and I was visiting her.

After arriving in America from England, I had
about five hours of rest.

We then set off from America. I was tired and
went to sleep with a blanket.

Soon the plane landed waking me and I looked at
my watch, wondering that it was a quick flight.

I saw that I was in California again and soon learnt
that one of the two engines went out.

I set about finding out arrangement for next flight
and was informed that it would be tomorrow.

We were to be put up at a hotel, so off I went to a
hotel.

The staff there confirmed I was deaf and then
said “off you go.”

Some respect!

In India my experience was where the staff sort of
put me in cotton wool…

Contrast this to my America’s
“off you go” experience.

I arrived at my room, and I got excited
when I saw there was a television.

I went about on playing with the remote control
and I soon found it had subtitles.

I was blown over by it. The subtitles were very
rapid scrolling by with so much text.

I thought it was fantastic! In England, the
subtitles are very slow in comparison.

America’s subtitles were so much faster.
I was impressed.

The following day, I rose early and flew to,
finally, Australia!

I arrived pleased to see my sister.

Goodbye.

Feel free to put in a comment with your verdict of this 3-part post.

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).

Please note: I’m a beginner at ASL, look elsewhere – for example, Joey Baer, if you want to see ASL properly signed.

See also Jeff’s post mentioned in the video.