The deaf community covers a wide spectrum from those who strive to overcome their deafness through the use of cochlear implants, for example, to those who stay resolutely within what is increasingly known as Deaf Culture.
One thing they all have in common is a huge uptake of internet technology. The deaf community were very early users of email, texting, Facebook etc, both to communicate with the ‘oralist’ mainstream and to revolutionise the way they could communicate amongst themselves.
Wikipedia has a very interesting article about the whole Deaf Culture debate and the meaning of ‘culture’ in this context – thought provoking stuff!
A Google search for ‘deaf culture’ throws up a wide range of resources and of course YouTube also provides a few goodies.
One very useful website is the one from Van Asch Deaf Education Centre (VADEC) which has a particularly useful range of NZ sign language resources, including illustrations and video clips of signs, signed songs, and links to a range of educational resources, including how various technologies work.
Deaf.org.nz have a lot of resources available to link the deaf and oralist communities, including a backgrounder on the recent Air NZ/ Virgin Blue ad, and a link to Maara Kai, a new trilingual series that both promotes te reo Maori to the deaf community and helps audiences with growing and using their own produce.