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Friends of Quinn.com

This blog acts as a means of communication for Quinn Bradley, who is learning disabled and who has written a book about his experiences; he blogs about events that take place in his life and answers questions from other LD people and their peers and family members.

FriendsofQuinn.com

Purpose: to connect with people with learning disabilities

It is a professional blog that is produced and maintained by a larger company, “Health Central”.

It has advertising

It has lots of pop up ads

Features:

Q. and A.

A community board, comprised of members

Questions answered by experts, like Queen Bradlee

Personal photos

Interests

Personal profiles

Other learning disabled people can create blogs on this site

Experts who blog

Provision of information on learning disabilities

Learning-disabled resources

Re: Facebook and Twitter

Thoughts on using social networking tools, as an LD student

Initial responses to using Facebook and Twitter, to connect with other LD people:

As a student who is LD, the obstacles of having multiple log-in ID’s, usernames and profiles, in conjunction with the existence of different types of interfaces, varying constraints on message length, and the potential for hidden useful features to exist on each site, makes the successful use of these tools have a potentially significant learning curve.

As for my use of Facebook, searching for groups that have an LD component was easy; however, Facebook’s interface made it difficult for me to monitor what groups I had already contacted. I would perform a search, using the search term, “Learning Disability”, and, a partial list would appear. In reality, I needed to view the entire listing; this was rather extensive; then, I selected a group from the list to contact; once I entered the group’s Facebook page, I would have to register before being fully admitted. By the time I was enabled to post my message, I would need to start the search process over and things would get confusing; eventually, I made pen on paper notations of which groups I had contacted. For non-disabled students, most likely, the trial and error method, in conjunction with the intuitive nature of the interface design, is sufficient to allow users to hit the ground, running; however, cognitively impaired learners could have more difficulty in using Facebook; if this tool is not made slightly more user-friendly, its potential ability to be used by all will not be fulfilled. Teachers and assistive personnel can take this into consideration and provide LD learners enhanced lessons on strategies that can be used to overcome potential glitches.

While tweeting, I had to complete several transmissions to different hash tags, due to the character-length limit. It was difficult for me to retain whom I had tweeted to; as well, I experienced difficulty remembering which hash tags I meant to contact, next. Although, Twitter presents users with a record of previously transmitted tweets, the process by which this is accomplished could be overwhelming, I think, as there is a need to switch screens, to review previously transmitted; I found it to be confusing. Maybe, eventually, I will grow used to it.