well, i've been experimenting with blogger as a notetaking place.  it works really well for my real estate and property law professor tom duffy. http://duffysrealestatelacc.blogspot.com/
he's a great teacher.  i approached him to show him what i had so far, and tell him how great class is, and about how stanford and harvard make video and audio documentation and great learning websites.
he seemed a bit flattered.  i wish i had the IT set up with  a great camera, an Itunes University account, and could begin sharing his brilliance with the world.
but LACC can't afford adequate janitorial services, or the ink to print a syllabus.
i am only one person, and trying to increase my tech skills.
what i love about all the new ways of sharing information is that the possibilities are infinite.
i really love Dr. Bartelt's class.  i think the approach shows great intellectual fortitude.  i recommend his classes to everyone i talk to.  i think the information regarding racism, sexism, and the environment are critical, and need a larger distribution platform, and a wider audience.
i'm promising myself not to overwhelm him with emails regarding all my big ideas.
the idea of mp3s of lecture---as i have for lots of duffy's lectures---really helps me.
i'm an audio learner with weak eyes and eyestrain.
i love the music of the human voice, and both my parents were big talkers with great vocabularies and great ideas.
so, please forgive the hedginess of my notes, the positioning of the camera.
we're still running tests.

if anyone wants the rundown, look up
FISA
appropriation of image
image rights
disability rights
ADA
In-q-tel, the company that helped the NSA break FISA to spy on your calls with AT&T
look up the electronic frontier foundation suit

what is really important to remember is that we're talking EDUCATION.
as if it were a crime.
what i see in the future, is a world where all beings would be guaranteed enriching educational experiences suited to their needs.
when i found the office of special services at LACC, i was overwhelmed.
for one thing, as christie passman, discrimination ombudsman explained, the way it is said is "students with disabilities" not disabled students.
this is important.

i feel like i have a lot of disabilities.
sometimes when i look at the textbook the words swim, and i can't make my eyes go left to right.
but i can make my computer read to me, and it slows me down.
i can listen to lectures from oxford, cambridge, NY law, U penn, stanford, washington Law, Cato instititute, harvard, yale.
some of the most fabulous things i have found for free on the web.
that's what its there for i thought.
so i hope some of our teachers would realize how brilliant they are and how the information they have could be shared with people like my friend katie.
the information which will help civil rights, or environmental awareness, or cultural miscommunications at the heart of war.
we can't afford to keep it secret.
that's selfish.

in the future, i imagine that not having an mp3, blogged notes, text to speech convertibility, alternative testing for dyslexics, tutors, digital notetaking will be in violation of disability rights law.
that's my vision for the future.
this experiment is just a small contribution to a global movement of open data.
the digital divide at LACC leaves the disabled out in the cold.
that should be actionable.
it will probably take more lawsuits to make mp3/or digitally formatted lectures required.
the Hi Tech center scans books.
the copyright precautions force disabled students to purchase books they may not be able to use as such.
there are all kinds of injustices in any system.
thanks so much to kendis in algebra for his help
http://laccalgebra.blogspot.com/
and to professor bartelt for his enthusiasm for bridging the many digital divides.
thanks to susan matranga at office of special services for her tireless advocacy and enthusiasm for new ideas.
thanks to omri, who allowed me to accompany him to music class to serve as a fascilitator.
all the paid tutor and notetaker jobs have been slashed with the budget.
i propose we write grants for a pilot program to modernize the tech and wifi on campus, build a webhub, and create work for students who can add notes to a digital note archive using audio recorders in their laptops, bambuser streams, blogging skills, and cloud document hosts like scribd.com.
so that when we are gone, there will be a rich compendium of resources available for tutoring and alternative learning.
and if we can't get funding, lets do it guerilla style.
because knowledge matters, and students matter.

for:
estelle condra,  a brilliant writer, teacher and actress, who triumphed over macular degeneration, and continued to create.  thank you for introducing me to text to speech recognition, back in the nineties.
katie broadbent, my best friend, who has told me for 13 years of the pain and struggle of dyslexia, discrimination, condesention.  her audio and visual learning abilities exceed average, and she has amazing powers of recall for the oral traditions.  the obstacles towards higher education and employment have been immense.  she is also an amazing artist.
daniel wiertzema, an engineer who became paraplegic after a car accident.  despite spasms in his arms, he could carefully key on his computer.  he rode his wheel chair to the university to study, and was one of the most relentless optimists i ever knew.