M.D.F
Macular Degeneration Foundation
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The Massachusetts Institute of Technology has made some of its course materials available online -- for free.
If you have an Internet connection and a Web browser, you can access MIT's pilot project:
OpenCourseWare which includes the syllabus, lecture notes, exams (with answers), and videotaped lectures of 32 MIT courses. Typically, MIT undergraduates pay $26,960 per year for these same course materials. This effort is part of a multiyear effort to create a unified approach to online access to the Institute's classes. The MIT faculty is embracing a comparison to the open-source model used by software developers who publish, license and release their products free of charge. Although MIT is not offering course credits for degrees with a similarly free pricing scheme, students are getting an increasing amount of their MIT education in the privacy of their own dorm room, rather than attending live lectures. There are still 1,968 courses remaining to be published, but teaching and learning using the new framework called "open knowledge systems" may be the future of higher education.
G.C.M.D.
Global Change Master Directory
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Recently, AT&T launched its free Video Relay Service, allowing hearing-impaired and deaf people nationwide to communicate with those who can hear.
Here's how it works: a deaf person sitting in front of a high-speed internet connected PC with a webcam installed, uses American Sign Language to "sign" to an ASL interpreter on the other end of the connection. The interpreter then gives the message to a hearing person, who takes an order or responds to a request as it's made.
The older version of this process, known as
traditional relay, allows a deaf or hearing-impaired person to use a TTY or a TDD (telecommunications device for the deaf), to type on the special keypad and transmit the message to an operator, who relays it by speaking to intended recipient.
(VRS) is more natural however, allowing faster and smoother communication from the deaf person's computer to the person being communicated with.
A similar
VRS is also available from
Communications Services for the Deaf.