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A Bay City woman has been busy training her dog to be a therapy dog. That in itself isn't strange, but what's out of the ordinary in this case is that the dog is deaf and is learning through sign language... 

By Craig McMorris, TV5 Anchor/Reporter

Click the link to read the rest of the story!

On August 12, 2010, I had guest blogger Andrew Hall, who also has guest blogged for My Dog Ate My Blog and a writer on online schools for Guide to Online Schools, write a post on The 10 Most Useful iPhone Apps for the Deaf. This post was extremely popular and has gotten the most pageviews on this blog. I decided that it is time for the iPad!

The iPhone has been hugely useful for the deaf and hard-of-hearing community. As a smartphone with an enormous library of applications, a number exist to better facilitate communication and make it possible to place and receive audio and/or video calls, among other things. However, the iPad is on the verge of topping the iPhone in terms of sales (just take a look at this awesome infographic!) ; it still has a way to go, but more and more people from the deaf/hard of hearing are using the iPad to help them with their way of life (mine included!).

Now, here are the latest ten apps to enhance one's iPad experience and life in general.

At Intel, life was different.

After I arrived at Intel two years ago as a recent college graduate (RCG), my manager and I discussed accommodations I would need to do my job as a Project / Program Manager in IT. Because I manage a virtual advisory team and is part of a staff with teammates from Malaysia and India, I would need to spend much of my time calling in meetings. A video phone was handed-me-down by a deaf employee who left Intel, but it had connectivity issues due to Intel’s network security. For the next several months, I was frustrated with obsolete equipments and text based captioning relay causing lag time in-between conversations.

My teammates were incredibly supportive by trying new things with me, such as the video conferencing rooms when they came out and web cameras on our laptops. However, the video conferencing rooms were hard to get due to their popularity and the video on web cameras was slow, so I was not able to read lips. Seven months passed before I discovered the Z video phone and after a trial period to ensure it would work over Intel’s firewall, I was hooked. The Z video phone allows me to connect to a sign language interpreter to make phone calls and participate in meetings on the bridge. I was able to do my job more efficiently, along with sign language interpreters in group meetings and training classes at Intel. It was like having my magic wand back, almost.