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http://nwitimes.com/articles/2006/02/07/news/illiana/4e00f5150f043fcd8625710d0082d428.txt
Students, administrators at Illinois School for the Deaf describe how text messaging has become the rage
Many of the state's tech-savvy deaf teens are smitten with text messaging and the ability it gives them to talk with anyone from anywhere.
Dmitry, 18, a senior at the Illinois School for the Deaf in Jacksonville, reeled off the reasons he's text-happy: "(My pager's) small. It's compact," he signed, communicating through a school interpreter during study hall. "I can use it when I travel. I can use it anywhere."
Dmitry said he uses his pager to connect with his immediate family in Chicago, all of whom are deaf, and deaf and hearing friends across the nation.
For all the students, technology has opened up worlds where hearing isn't an issue. They use pagers, e-mail, instant messaging, computer-enabled videophone and tele-typewriters, or TTYs.
TTYs, designed specifically for the deaf, allow people to use a telephone to type back and forth to one another. Those who are deaf also can use a service called relay that connects them with an interpreter who reads their text to hearing listeners using standard phones.
Students at the school rely on pagers as much as their hearing peers do cell phones. But several students said there's room for improvement.
Dmitry would like a faster network, increased memory and satellite-supported coverage.
"If there's an emergency and there's information that I need to send, then I'm stuck if the tower's not working," he said.
Other classmates say they find it tough to squeeze what they want to say to their hearing parents into 160 characters, the maximum size of most text messages. Deaf people generally don't favor abbreviations used by hearing texters, such as 'u' for 'you,' the teens said.
"Those things are based on phonetics," Dmitry clarified. "We don't hear that so we don't necessarily know that."
Marybeth Lauderdale, director of media and curriculum at the school, said she's glad to see new technology including deaf people for a change.
"When Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone, he was trying to invent a way to make his deaf wife (and mother) hear better," she said. "But instead, he made something that cut deaf people off from hearing people. Before that, everyone had to depend on the telegraph."
Teaching pager and cell phone "etiquette" is just the latest chapter in the mission of the 167-year-old residential and day school, Lauderdale said.
At the school, students can carry their pagers in their bags, but they have to stay out of sight during the school day, Lauderdale said. Just knowing about the consequences is usually enough to discourage would-be offenders, she said.
But Lauderdale understands the temptation of texting.
"You can't blame them for loving it," she said. "It has opened up a whole new world and it has really leveled the communication playing field."
Students, administrators at Illinois School for the Deaf describe how text messaging has become the rage
Many of the state's tech-savvy deaf teens are smitten with text messaging and the ability it gives them to talk with anyone from anywhere.
Dmitry, 18, a senior at the Illinois School for the Deaf in Jacksonville, reeled off the reasons he's text-happy: "(My pager's) small. It's compact," he signed, communicating through a school interpreter during study hall. "I can use it when I travel. I can use it anywhere."
Dmitry said he uses his pager to connect with his immediate family in Chicago, all of whom are deaf, and deaf and hearing friends across the nation.
For all the students, technology has opened up worlds where hearing isn't an issue. They use pagers, e-mail, instant messaging, computer-enabled videophone and tele-typewriters, or TTYs.
TTYs, designed specifically for the deaf, allow people to use a telephone to type back and forth to one another. Those who are deaf also can use a service called relay that connects them with an interpreter who reads their text to hearing listeners using standard phones.
Students at the school rely on pagers as much as their hearing peers do cell phones. But several students said there's room for improvement.
Dmitry would like a faster network, increased memory and satellite-supported coverage.
"If there's an emergency and there's information that I need to send, then I'm stuck if the tower's not working," he said.
Other classmates say they find it tough to squeeze what they want to say to their hearing parents into 160 characters, the maximum size of most text messages. Deaf people generally don't favor abbreviations used by hearing texters, such as 'u' for 'you,' the teens said.
"Those things are based on phonetics," Dmitry clarified. "We don't hear that so we don't necessarily know that."
Marybeth Lauderdale, director of media and curriculum at the school, said she's glad to see new technology including deaf people for a change.
"When Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone, he was trying to invent a way to make his deaf wife (and mother) hear better," she said. "But instead, he made something that cut deaf people off from hearing people. Before that, everyone had to depend on the telegraph."
Teaching pager and cell phone "etiquette" is just the latest chapter in the mission of the 167-year-old residential and day school, Lauderdale said.
At the school, students can carry their pagers in their bags, but they have to stay out of sight during the school day, Lauderdale said. Just knowing about the consequences is usually enough to discourage would-be offenders, she said.
But Lauderdale understands the temptation of texting.
"You can't blame them for loving it," she said. "It has opened up a whole new world and it has really leveled the communication playing field."