This blog is a chronicle of the happenings, ideas and projects that float in and around The Pollen Shop.
Nest - National Employment Savings Trust
The Pollen Shop have been working with TCS to develop the transactional website for NEST (National Employment Savings Scheme).
NEST is a straightforward workplace pension scheme for employers to use for their UK-based workers.
United Kingdom Disabled People's Council
The Pollen Shop have developed a new website for the United Kingdom Disabled People’s Council (UKDPC).
The UKDPC work with over 300 disabled people’s organisations and run consultation and capacity building events all over the country.
Disability Lib online video resource
The Pollen Shop have developed a new online video resource for Disability Lib.
The video resource highlights the work of Disability LIB and contain a number of personal stories about organisational change and the work of Disabled People’s Organisations (DPOs). Linked to the films are a number of relevant toolkits and materials. The films are for DPOs to use to promote their work in presentations, for training and other activities.
Disability Rights Watch website
The Pollen Shop has developed a new website to collect evidence about disabled people’s human rights.
Disability Rights Watch UK is a project of United Kingdom Disabled Peoples’ Council (UKDPC), and is supported by the Disability LIB Alliance and Scope.
The project aims to ensure that disabled people, Disabled People’s Organisations (DPOs) and their allies, are fully involved in monitoring the UK’s performance in implementing the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.
The Pollen Shop designed and developed a website that can capture peoples stories and experiences and allow them to submit documents, pictures and even video as supporting evidence.
Forget the goofy music and the slightly strange advertised name (The Predator) this could be a game changer for Assistive Technology
logo from the new website - the kindest cut
We are asking a small band of incredibly astute, beautiful people to help us test a new website we are developing. So if you are, and can, have a go – post a budget or comment on one that is already there. And then tell us what you think.
The website will be used by organisations changing budgets or those on the outside who are trying to help organisations readjust budgets in different ways. Many of the final customers for this site are going to be small – often very small – community based organisations who want the voice of service users to be heard. For this reason this is going to be sold at a very low cost as a short term as a hosted solution.
We know that it doesn’t quite work and is a bit clunky but we need your help to tell us what can be done to improve it. The current demo site a standard local government budget – this is somewhat artificial, but is a simple budget to test. Any suggestions for the next demo (which could go live) would be greatly received. If you have a budget or know of a budget change you would like feedback on let us know.
You will need a password to get on the site - contact us for more details
The BBC has been recently discussing its approach to HTML5 and open standards on its developer blog.
The debate is simply about, why do the BBC persist in using (non open standard) Flash, rather than (the very open standard) HTML 5? Some advocates of open standards believe this an odd place for the BBC to be – given that its own charter charges it to promote open standards
While we strongly believe in open standard technology, we also take a common sense approach. Flash has become the defacto standard for delivering web based video and we don’t see that changing anytime soon, despite the fact that some other technology companies object. Apple does not allow Flash on iPhones, iPods and iPads
Until the major browsers get to a point where they are capable of delivering HTML5 video to the masses (rather than the iPhollowers) nothing will happen. At the moment there is not even agreement amongst the major browsers about which native video format to support.
There are also issues around accessibility. While we think that HTML5 could improve web accessibility in the long term, it’s worth thinking about things like ‘captioning’ (text versions of the spoken word which allow the content of web audio and video to be accessible to those who do not have access to audio) a process that has become relatively simple and well used with Flash video players. Youtube offers captioning for all uploaded videos.
For now the Beeb have it spot on. HTML5 video is not yet available to the majority of web users, there is no consensus amongst the major players on which format to use and, even if this happens, there are some big accessibility questions to be answered. Flash video is not leaving anytime soon.
The BBC technology is running a story about an idea that started in Indian slums to enable children teach themselves – and others – how to use the Internet to and gather information.
Professor Sugata Mitra’s “Hole in the Wall” experiments have shown that, in the absence of supervision or formal teaching, children can teach themselves and each other, if they’re motivated by curiosity
The research raises some interesting questions about how children learn and the value of teaching, especially in the field of technology where many common processes are built to support self-learning.
It also highlights how research plays in different situations. Sugata Mitra’s has been promoting his work for while, but only now in these fiscally challenged times has it popped into the consciousness of BBC technology.
Should UK teachers be worried that they are going to be automated? – Probably not. But it does suggest something that every techie already knows that technologies are ‘learnt’ not ‘taught’
Sugata Mitra Speaking at LIFT 2007 about his Hole in the Wall project.
Polls Apart report
The Pollen Shop is again helping Scope with the Polls Apart campaign. In one way or another we have been involved in this project for over a decade. We are currently in the process of developing the data capture website through which people can tell us about the accessibility of their polling stations.
The objective of the campaign is to ensure that disabled people have the same access to Britain’s democracy as everyone else. One way we do this is by surveying polling stations at election time to find out which are accessible and which have barriers that prevent people from voting. In previous years we have found that the majority of polling stations have one or more accesses barriers that would prevent – or significantly hinder – someone from voting. These barriers are things like flights of steps, rickety ramps or low lighting. They might not seem much but they have a significant impact on disabled people, older people or even parents with pushchairs. Often they might not absolutely prevent someone from voting – we’ve known wheelchair users to be carried up stairs to vote – but they do create a significant disincentive for people to take part.
Obviously there is postal voting. Now that this is more freely available it has added a new dimension and an alternative for people who have stable voting intentions. Provided you can read and write and do the origami needed to send the vote back you have a second channel through which you can vote. Buts it’s not an identical or as instant as putting a ballot paper in a ballot box. People need to vote days in advance and as we all know a lot can change in the space of a few hours in politics. There is also the possibility of vote grazing where people return ballots for other people who are unwilling or unable to protect their vote.
And then of course there is proxy voting which is entrusting your vote to someone you trust who votes on your behalf as instructed. Not exactly fail safe is it!!
Technology was tried but the government ran away with their tails between their legs.
So what we are left with is paper and pencils and polling stations. The Campaign seeks to make this ancient process as accessible as possible to ensure that everyone has the same rights to take part in the democratic process.