NTID Offers "Deaf Initiative In Information Technology" Workshops

Editor: An ongoing issue reported by people with hearing loss is their inability to take advantage of standard training opportunities. This seems to be especially true for technical subjects with new and complex vocabulary, e.g. computers. NTID has just announced computer hardware and software courses that are restricted to participants with hearing loss. The first courses will be presented this winter/spring, with more to follow. This looks like a great opportunity for those of you who work in this field (or want to). Here's their press release:

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Two information technology workshops designed for and available only to deaf and hard-of-hearing people are being offered at the National Technical Institute for the Deaf (NTID), a college of Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT).

The five-day workshops, PC Hardware Maintenance and Repair, offered February 26-March 2, and Object-Oriented Programming Using Microsoft Visual Basic 6.0, offered April 30-May 4, are part of the Deaf Initiative in Information Technology (DIIT), supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation, and are held in NTID's state-of-the-art DIIT classrooms. Additional workshops are planned for 2001 and 2002.

"Having the perspective of other deaf adults while learning new software and technology was very beneficial," said Patrick Murray, a product tester at IBM in Austin, Texas, who attended the first
DIIT workshop, Creating Web Sites with FrontPage 2000. "Each participant shared their experiences from the work world and built a solid network of people who could support each other in the future."

Registration is limited to 12 attendees for each workshop, and will be accepted on a first-come, first-served basis. The cost of the week-long workshop is $550. For information on the workshops or to register, contact the program's e-mail address at diit@rit.edu or visit the Web site at http://www.rit.edu/~diit.