Tag: technology

Posted on in Interpreting, Language

Computerized interpretation of vague language for Web searches

It’s great to see how people other than “interpreters” are implementing the “interpretation” of vague language for practical applications! Panos Alexopoulos, in his presentation Vagueness in Semantic Information Management, discusses how Internet engineers can design databases with search capabilities that can “interpret” what consumers mean when they say they are looking for, say, a “Big, modern restaurant.” (How many square feet is big? What year range or architectural and interior design qualifies as modern?) He discusses the challenge of developing algorithms that can translate vague search terms into specific results. Very interesting!

Posted on in Business, Interpreting

Ever forget an assignment? Make it less likely with automatic agenda emails.

I hate to admit it, but there have been those mortifying times when I’ve forgotten I had a job to get to. It’s easy to follow a schedule when it’s the same every day, but when you’re a community interpreter and your schedule changes every day, you might need a little help.

Lately, some of the agencies I work for have started sending out automatic agenda reminders via email, such as “Here is your schedule for this week” or “Here is your schedule today.” These reminder emails are very helpful — so helpful I was about to ask an agency who doesn’t send them to send them. I rethought that, though, because I had forgotten a job with them that week and I didn’t want it to come across as, “Well, it would help if you sent me a reminder.” So I did some searching and found that I could set up my own email reminders in my Google calendar. Here’s how:

In your Google calendar, go to Settings. Currently the way to do this is to click on the gear icon in the top right corner of the page. When in Settings, click the Calendars tab from the tabs toward the top left of the page (where you see General, Calendars, Mobile Setup, Labs). For your work calendar, look for the Notifications heading just right of the center of the Calendar line (where you see CALENDAR, SHOW IN LIST, NOTIFICATIONS, SHARING). Follow the Notifications link for your work calendar. Scroll to the bottom of the page where it says, “Daily agenda: Receive an email with your agenda every day at 5am in your current time zone.” Check the box next to Email and/or SMS, and you’re done! You will now get your very own agenda reminders at the crack of dawn.

Go forth and serve thy Deaf and hearing consumers!

P.S. I know not everyone uses Gmail or Google Apps, but maybe the calendaring program you use does this too. If not, maybe you should get with a program that does.

Posted on in Communication, Education, Interpreting

First workshop on Google+ Hangout a success

Online participant’s view of Fostering Independence workshop conducted in a Google+ Hangout

Learning from colleagues via Daniel Greene’s workshop… all from the comfort of my home while my daughter naps. Amazing technology!

–online participant

Introduction

Yesterday, I included online participants in one of my workshops for the first time. I had used the technology in my teaching practicum last quarter in grad school, but this was the first time I used a Google+ Hangout to give a three-hour workshop as a solo presenter. We had a small turnout for this one, including two participants online and three participants on site. The two online participants connected separately, I had my own connection, and the three onsite participants had two laptops between them, so we had a total of five video connections. A Hangout will hold ten video connections, so we could have had five more Google+ Hangout participants — six more if we had only used one connection for all the onsite participants. And of course we could have had more onsite participants.

Methods

I advertised the Google+ Hangout on Google+, Facebook, Twitter, and my blog two days before the event. I had online participants register with the site coordinator and pay me directly via PayPal. I had the participants check to see that they had Google+ accounts and send me their Gmail addresses so I could find them on Google+ and add them to a Circle. The site coordinator emailed my handouts and slides to the online participants as PDFs so they could follow along on their screen or print them as they saw fit. She also got the participants’ details so she could process CEUs. The onsite participants had my handouts printed, and I also showed my slideshow on the screen behind me.  I conducted the workshop in English, and in addition to using the Hangout for talking, I used the Hangout YouTube app to show a video to the participants. I could have used the Slideshare app to share my slides as well, but I wanted to keep it simple and not “tempt fate” by overloading the system. I told my students I would start a new Hangout and invite them if we all got disconnected; that avoids the problem of people inviting each other and refusing each other’s invitations because each one wants the other to join the Hangout they started.

Results

I was able to harness the technology to extend my teaching, and the students/participants gave me excellent scores and comments on the evaluations. I had hoped for some interpreters of languages other than ASL and English, but as it turned out, we were all ASL/English interpreters. We did experience some packet loss or “freezing video” a couple of times, and the online participants had to reconnect once or twice, but thankfully we never lost the Hangout altogether. We onsite people tended to look at the laptops in front of us more than each other, so it was a bit like we were all online participants. I shared my observation and suggested with some levity those of us in the room “might look at each other once in a while.” We did balance looking at the screens with looking at each other so that all participants felt included.

Discussion

All-in-all, it was a great experience for all of us. The online/onsite hybrid was a fascinating dynamic with us onsite looking at laptops in front of us, yet I was glad  I had participants in front of me onsite as well as online. I’m glad I didn’t cancel the workshop due to low registration, and even though extending the workshop online only brought two extra participants, the small number was cozy and the interaction was rich. It was worth it for what we were all able to learn from each other about getting out of the way and fostering independence.

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Posted on in Communication

Do you live in a Social Local Mobile world?

I don’t know about you, but I am not surrounded by friends walking around toting GPS-enabled smartphones on the same social networks looking to hook up for coffee or sushi. And I certainly I do not go out to dinner with a dozen friends who pay the same check with the same mobile app from the same bank. Who lives like that?

I have been a longtime believer in Social – Local – Mobile — SoLoMo — and have experienced it on rare occasion, but no critical mass of adopters have made it part of my world. I suppose it might catch on someday, but I’ve had too many techie dreams dashed by lack of adoption by anyone I knew. Do you remember having a Palm device with IR that could beam contact info to people you met? Did you ever actually do it? Did you ever have a Sidekick that could send contact info over Bluetooth? Did you ever find anyone who could actually use it? The few times I tried it, it took me longer to teach my contact how to do it than if I had tattooed their number on the back of my hand in my own blood.

After I got a G1 four years ago, I tried Google Latitude and got three, count ’em, three contacts to sign up. Two of them lived out-of-state. Then there was Bump and now there’s Beam, but who uses it? I have a Galaxy Nexus, and I don’t even know anyone to Beam with. I guess that’s what I get for not having friends who wear black rimmed glasses and hang out in the Android store. So you see, I have been trying to go SoLoMo for over a decade now; my world just hasn’t embraced it.

Now there are all these SoLoMo startups with cute ads featuring people keeping in touch with their social-local-mobile apps — people living in a world where people actually spend time on anything but Facebook. My question is: Who are these people? Where are they? Are you one of them? Please, tell this Earthling what it’s like.

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