AHG Day #3

Good day today at Accessing Higher Ground. So far the conference has been everything it has been billed to be [and more]. It is great to be among fellow techies and not just on the side of activities [as some of us feel at much larger/comprehensive conferences]. As an example of how techie things are here - the conference ran low out of Wi-Fi bandwidth. Even the hotel was having trouble keeping up with the number of wireless devices and laptops.

Keep in mind these are just my reviews and impression from the conference. I hope to see other ATHEN members post their thoughts as well. I know Sean Keegan is planning to post some items to the blog section of the new ATHEN website.

This morning I attended a presentation on ADA, Title II and IT. Ken Nakata of BayFirst Solutions LLC gave a brief but worthwhile overview of how these two + Title III and Section 508 fit into the compliance puzzle. especially interesting was a query about what is meant by "place" when we are talking about the internet. When an entity has both a "brick" component and a "click" it can be difficult to ascertain where one ends and the other begins [provided the two sides even communicate]. Unfortunately Ken ran out of time - this is one topic that may be better suited to a longer pre-conference slot.

One thing I did get out of the presentation was an introduction to a new software program [new to me anyway]. MindManager 6 is very cool! It reminds me of a cross between Powerpoint and Inspiration. Wikked cool! With luck, his presentation [and all of them from the conference] will be posted on the AHG website soon.

Later on I attended "Beyond the Text: Accessible Multimedia within eBooks" presented by Geoff Freed of the National Center for Accessible Media @ WGBH. For some reason about half-way through the presentation the following question popped into my head - given all of this new technology and the resulting copyright concerns they inspire - who, ultimately, has more rights? The author or the reader? I may never get a satisfactory answer to this query - but it will provide something to mentally chew on for a while.

The ATHEN meeting took place from 6:30 till 8:00 pm. As soon as I can decipher my chicken scratch and coordinate the minutes I took with those of Sean we will pass them by Ron before making them available to the members. [This will at least give me something to do during my 3.5 hour layover in Chicago tomorrow!]