Comments on: Speakapedia. http://harlotofthearts.org/blog/2008/08/16/speakapedia/ Wed, 07 Jul 2010 04:21:48 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0 By: Vera http://harlotofthearts.org/blog/2008/08/16/speakapedia/comment-page-1/#comment-59 Vera Sun, 17 Aug 2008 20:41:21 +0000 http://rhetoricalcommons.org/harlot/?p=122#comment-59 My dream would be to have an audio book reader. There were times when I've had to struggle through reading dense books of theory, and all I wanted was to hear it aloud while I cook in the kitchen, go out for a walk, or simply close my eyes and massage my temples. I want to hear the words play in the background so I can let the ideas seep in slowly and naturally and not rely so much upon fast-paced (i.e., temporary) memorization and marathon reading. I remember listening to a lecture on a topic within disability studies by OSU prof Brenda Brueggemann, and she said we owe much to those who design assistive technologies because those inventions eventually enter mainstream technology and have the potential to facilitate tasks for everyone. Will the time come that we can compose emails by speaking to our computer (without worry of garbled words and mangled sentences) while we chop vegetables or rest our eyes? I certainly hope so -- and not just for my own benefit. My dream would be to have an audio book reader. There were times when I’ve had to struggle through reading dense books of theory, and all I wanted was to hear it aloud while I cook in the kitchen, go out for a walk, or simply close my eyes and massage my temples. I want to hear the words play in the background so I can let the ideas seep in slowly and naturally and not rely so much upon fast-paced (i.e., temporary) memorization and marathon reading.

I remember listening to a lecture on a topic within disability studies by OSU prof Brenda Brueggemann, and she said we owe much to those who design assistive technologies because those inventions eventually enter mainstream technology and have the potential to facilitate tasks for everyone. Will the time come that we can compose emails by speaking to our computer (without worry of garbled words and mangled sentences) while we chop vegetables or rest our eyes? I certainly hope so — and not just for my own benefit.

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