As of lately I have started to use the king of all video calling, instant messaging and group video calling calls Skype with a couple of my friends who happens to be Deaf which that means we communicate in our native language with each others on Skype. In case some of you may not know what I mean by our native language, that would be American Sign Language (ASL) as there are many of us Deaf and Hard of Hearing people’s first language is American Sign Language since that it is the language we started to learn when a tiny brain of ours starts to grow to a point that can understand the communication whether it be American Sign Language, English or any other languages that their parents prefer for their children. After spending a little more time of using Skype, for past years I was somewhat unsure of Skype because ever since I first owned a computer I always used Yahoo! Messenger and that is obviously different from what Skype is since Skype has much more features such as video calling, audio calling which that is something that is useless to me as I am hard of hearing and sharing the screen with other people. These features I mentioned is what are different from Yahoo Messengers, while as for the rest of other features is same between both such as files sharing (photos, documents, videos, audio, etc) and I forgot to mention that Skype have a feature where you can leave a video message although I don’t know if Yahoo Messenger have that feature now or not but if they do please let me know in the comment below.
The more I use Skype the more addicting it have become for me, maybe it is because where there are not any Deaf or Hard of Hearing people who lives close enough to me for all of my life that I never had the chance to communicate with anyone who and I have in common – Deaf or Hard of Hearing that shares my native language.
Well that I lied, I apologize because I have just remembered that I did had someone who is Deaf that moved to about four or five houses away from me on the street that I lives on literally which that person became my girlfriend at that time and she was my first Deaf girlfriend but it wasn’t for much long as she had moved back to the place that she hailed from which is Ohio within’ a year and half after living here. So just a mere less than two years of having a chance to communicate with someone who is same as myself, well she is Deaf and I am hard of hearing but still in my eyes they are the same thing whether some of you may disagree with that statement so I really never had much of having someone who shares the same culture that I have to communicate with in first place as less than two years is almost not much of a long I think. Nonetheless thanks to the internet I have the chance of finding few people who’s Deaf or Hard of Hearing, a few out of over three hundred thousands (300,000) Deaf and Hard of Hearing people here in the United States to get to know.
While that I have found a great people who happens to be Deaf and Hard of Hearing, we have become friends but the problem is these friends are not from my area as they are spread out all over here in the United States. Then I remembered over a decade ago that I used to chat with some strangers on Yahoo Messenger so I decided to do some searching and I am more than happy to say that there is a software that do the things we Deaf community need over on the internet to be able to communicate with each others using our native language American Sign Language on a video or more so a group video calling. Some call it a group video conference which make more sense but Skype calls it 1-on-1 video calling and group video calling which is amazing as Skype allows us to communicate with each others using American Sign Language instead of being left with the audio option since audio feature is useless for us.
Skype is created by a leading company of computer industry, Microsoft and of course that means it is a trusted software to download to use. After being able to find three or four Deaf or Hard of Hearing people who uses Skype, I decided to ask a group that has over five thousands of Deaf and Hard of Hearing users on Facebook if they would be interested in skyping with me sometimes. From there I was utterly shocked to find out that there is not many Deaf or Hard of Hearing people who take the advantage of Skype, as Skype have everything except the useless feature audio to use because not many of them know what Skype is and I have tried to convince them to sign up on Skype so that they can have the opportunity to communicate with others who shares the same culture as they do including myself but for some reason I have failed to do so that lately. Out of all responses I have received for their reasons of not using Skype is that there is already device called videophone which is provided by Video Relay Service (VRS) where all Deaf and Hard of Hearing people can make a call to each others using their 10 area digital numbers. Video Relay Service are the new technology that we all Deaf and Hard of Hearing uses for a few years now to call anyone we wish to call where they provide interpreters to translate the conversation for us at no cost as it is funded under Federal Communications Commission.
If you don’t know what Video Relay Service (VRS) are, I have already wrote an article about the Video Relay Service and VideoPhone which you can read it here titled Video Relay Service and VideoPhone.
While they do have a good point, by saying that why should they use Skype when there is already a technology that allows them to talk with each others by using their Video Phone provided by one or more Video Relay Service providers but what they do not realize is that on videophone does not have the feature where you can communicate with up to 25 Deaf and Hard of Hearing people using American Sign Language on video which that is something that no videophone has. That is just one thing, Skype also allows you to send pictures or videos while you are on video with up to 25 people and be able to send text if some of the signs that you didn’t understand since not everyone uses the same signs. I just told you three things that is something VideoPhone provided by Video Relay Service providers doesn’t offer, there are more than just three things that I listed and if you are curious about the rest of other features that Skype has to offer then you just have to give Skype a try (I should be their marketer!).
Skype For Deaf and Hard of Hearing!
Skype is almost available for everything, as you can download Skype for any Apple devices (iPhone, iPad, iPod, Mac Desktop/Laptop), Android devices (Samsung devices, HTC devices, Motorola devices etc), Windows devices (PC/Laptop, tablets such as Surface, Windows phones), Xbox, Playstation and even on some of smart television with smart tv accessory webcam that can be bought separately. But what is more important is that Skype costs nothing, by that I mean Skype is free but they also offer business package which that is not for free as it increase the limitation of 25 people to 250 for $5.50 monthly and I highly recommend Skype especially to everybody in the Deaf community. If any of you who happens to be Deaf or Hard of Hearing and still isn’t considering to give Skype a try then you are missing out a lot includes having the opportunity to have a conversation with me using American Sign Language! 🙂
To download Skype, you can head over and visit Skype.com where you click the “downloads” and then download the Skype for whatever the device(s) that you use. But if you cannot find Skype for your device, such as smart tv then head over to the applications/market on your smart tv and search for Skype then from there you see if your smart tv have Skype. I know most of Samsung Smart TV have Skype but I don’t know about the rest of other manufacturers though. All you have to do is download Skype then register an account with Skype and then start searching for the people who you know to Skype with.
If you are fluent in American Sign Language and would like to communicate with me on Skype then please feel free to shoot me an email with your Skype ID by pressing the “Contact” tab at the top on here at JoshiesWorld.com.
I must get going as I have a few of things but I ask all of you to please be careful doing whatever it is that you are planning on to do for the day and I hope that all of you have a great day or whatever it is left over as it’s in the evening now at least it is over here in eastern part of Kentucky.
Joshua “Joshie” Sullivan.
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