Technology niggles - we all have them!
Donna Corrigan
I am delighted to be the one to tell you about your new technology blog, and then a little about one of my own personal favourite pieces of technology, and just in case you know me, it might surprise you to know for once it is not a hearing aid……well I am an audiologist!
Your technology blog will be updated regularly with people’s personal thoughts and experiences about technology. Contributors to the blog might have a dual or single sensory impairment, work with people with impairment, or work for a company or organisation related to technology or sensory impairment. Our tech bloggers might talk about a favourite piece of technology, a new piece of technology that they have tried or a technology niggle (we all have them!).
I frequently sit on the train heading to the Sense office looking around in amazement at all the technology that people carry around and use in their daily lives. I also wonder how much of it ends up in the lost property department at St Pancras train station – I know this exists as my best friend spent much of her commuting career on the phone to them and knew them all by first name!
I enjoy technology and what it is capable of doing and often wonder what technology my daughter will experience as she grows up, at 4 years old she is already a dab hand with anything that plays music including my waterproof MP3 player. This has to be my personal favourite bit of tech. I took up swimming a couple of years ago and although I saw the physical benefit of it quite quickly, mentally I compared myself to a goldfish, swimming round in circles remembering about the last 7 seconds.
All that changed the day I got my Speedo waterproof MP3 player. It took a bit of fiddling about with the ear buds, these fit on the waterproof headphones and then in your ears and eventually I got some proper ear moulds made instead that connect to the headphones and fit my ears comfortably – brilliant! I can happily swim for hours listening to music unaware that I am still going round in the same circles I was before!!
Despite many portable music devices being touch screen now and without buttons as such, this device is different because it is designed to be used while it is attached to the strap of your swimming goggles so no one is able to see the controls at the same time as swimming, this means that the buttons are pretty tactile.
Do I have any niggles with it? Yes there is one minor one, the player I use does not indicate when the battery is running out so I often complete my lengthy pre-pool swim routine only to find it has run out of battery and I then have to return to the locker room, down a freezing cold corridor, to put it away and get my very boring pair of normal swim plugs. I should add though, there is now a newer version available from Speedo that does indicate low battery but Father Christmas had obviously ran out this year – may be next year?
Would you like to tell people about the technology in your life? If the answer is yes, please contact technology@sense.org.uk.
Donna Corrigan is Sense's Technology Officer
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