[Ohio-Talk] Thoughts on Zoom

[Wanda]

I am a bit slow but I will be catching up!
Wan

-----Original Message-----
From: Ohio-Talk [mailto:ohio-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Barbara Shaidnagle via Ohio-Talk
Sent: Tuesday, May 26, 2020 8:29 AM
To: NFB of Ohio Announcement and Discussion List <ohio-talk at nfbnet.org>
Cc: Barbara Shaidnagle <bshaid at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [Ohio-Talk] Thoughts on Zoom

Well said.  Remember, too, that the new generation of NFB'ers are more tech savvy than us remaining dinosaurs.  Go with the floor be left behind.

When I was working as a pathology transceiver in Houston, whenever the question was put forth, I always advocated to work from home.  After one of the hurricanes that indeed happened.

On the subject on phones specifically, I had cause to upgrade my flip phone when working with CVS on some sort of project I did.  Which is why I now advocate for the android; it fits me as great as the IBM clone computers I worked on as a medical/pathology transcriber.  My late husband Joe Shaidnagle kept his flip phone was not interested in upgrading to anything; he used it to read Newsline and to stream conventions in Orlando.  I upgraded his phone and it is what I am using now to convey this.  It does not have a SIM card, no second line, so I play WORDFEUD and word pearls on it.  Ok.  Done.  Looking forward to our virtual convention which I will probably call in to participate...

On Tue, May 26, 2020, 6:36 AM Eric Duffy via Ohio-Talk <ohio-talk at nfbnet.org>
wrote:

> I am not writing this for the purpose of a debate or a prolonged 
> discussion. In fact, although I don’t moderate this list, my guess is 
> that if we go in that direction the president will end the thread 
> after a reasonable time.
>
> I write this because I think it is important for the membership to 
> understand why decisions are made when we can bring clarity to a 
> situation, and I think we can do it here. Change can always be hard 
> for individuals and organizations. I remember when we began to move 
> away from the cassette edition of the Buckeye Bulletin. The Board of 
> Directors said that we would continue to record the newsletter on 
> cassette  for as long as it was practical to do it. But there came a 
> time when cassettes were harder to buy and our duplicator was breaking 
> down. Deborah Kendrick then recorded one edition of the newsletter on 
> CD. There were problems with that, the chief of which was the amount 
> of time it took. But we said that we would make it possible for everyone who wanted it to have access to the Buckeye Bulletin.
> Tom Anderson was our poster child for this. Tom made it clear that he 
> was not a computer user, and that he was not going to read the 
> Bulletin by Email. The obvious solution was to put the newsletter on 
> the Ohio information channel of NFB-NEWSLINE. Thus we have been doing 
> that for years.
> What does all of that have to do with Zoom? Everything! We don’t make 
> major changes in this organization without considering the needs of as 
> many members as possible. We research, test, and research and test 
> again. We do what we can to provide help and resources to help those 
> who need it when adjusting to the change. The national organization 
> began using Zoom when I was Director of Access Technology. We tested 
> other platforms and found Zoom to be the most stable and non-visually 
> accessible. We used Zoom for our Bell planning meetings in Ohio last 
> summer. I used Zoom when trying to stream the state convention in 
> 2018. There were problems with that, so we invested in hardware and used a brand new streaming system last convention.
>
> President Payne spent hours becoming familiar with Zoom and others of 
> us did the same before we began to use it on a regular basis. We have 
> offered training for those who wanted it. We made resources available. 
> We have done all we can to make it clear that you can still use your 
> phone and that all you have to do is get used to calling a different 
> phone number and entering a different access code.
>
> Our national convention will be a virtual convention. This will allow 
> more people to participate than ever before. How this will all come 
> together, I am not sure. Which platforms will be used? I am not 
> certain. Fortunately the responsibility for making such decisions is well beyond my pay grade.
> But I feel fairly safe in saying that Freeconferencecall.com < 
> http://freeconferencecall.com/> won’t be one of those platforms.
>
> Services such as free conference call are getting harder for some 
> people to get into either because of changes phone carriers have made 
> or because of changes the services have made. What we do know right 
> now is that Zoom is accessible in every way we need it to be.
>
> If you need help please reach out to president Payne or to other 
> affiliate leaders. We are here to support you.
>
> Eric
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