YouTube Automatic Captioning Moves Out Of Beta
Tuesday, March 9th, 2010In recent years websites such as CaptionTube and independent services made videos and audio more accessible to deaf or hard of hearing people. In November 2009, Google announced the automatic captioning of videos on its YouTube site to boost captioning provision and support text indexing.
Existing captioning services are not always user friendly or free. With [...]
Inclusive Education Is ‘All-Encompassing’ Learning
Tuesday, March 2nd, 2010Inclusive education gives all children mutual learning experiences - while also benefiting teachers’ preparation skills and professional development.
Fundamentally, inclusive education teaches children about diversity, and leads teachers to diversify within their own professions, for social benefit.
This academic blog post, “Inclusion Is Needed In Classrooms“, makes a solid case for inclusive education, with an itemised reading [...]
Including Deaf Children At Preschool - Part Two
Thursday, February 25th, 2010This post continues the piece, Including Deaf Children At Preschool (Part One). A key question was put to the mum & creche manager:
How did you identify the potential challenges you (mum & creche) might meet during Charlie’s early days there?
(The Mum)
Once Charlie’s deafness was confirmed, we understood that communication methods had to be adjusted. He [...]
Including Deaf Children At Preschool - Part One
Monday, February 15th, 2010This spring, the Irish government rolls out its free preschool year for all children born between February 2, 2005 to June 30, 2006 (with exemptions for children with special needs). The Early Child Care & Education (ECCE) initiative, which is open to all preschools in Ireland, is profiled on IDK.
IDK will this week [...]
European Award for Languages 2010 (Leargas)
Wednesday, February 10th, 2010Leargas, the national agency in Ireland for co-operation programmes in education, youth and community work, vocational education and training, is managing the European Award for Languages 2010 on behalf of the EU.
Schools, colleges, businesses and language institutions can apply for these awards. The aim in 2010 is to find organizations that promote language learning in [...]
Schools ‘Must Change Their Attitude To Disability’
Wednesday, February 3rd, 2010Ann Heelan, executive director of AHEAD (Association for Higher Education Access and Disability), recently had an excellent piece in The Irish Times.
A key point in the article states:
” Children with disabilities can learn as much as other children when given the right tools and the right learning environment. Technology can make a significant difference and [...]
IBM’s KidSmart PC Supports Language Teaching
Friday, January 29th, 2010IBM’s KidSmart program was recently displayed at the Young Scientists’ Exhibition in the RDS. This program aims to integrate interactive teaching and learning activities into pre-schools and is aimed at 3-7 year olds.
The program is currently used with over 2 million children in 60 countries. The focus is on underprivileged areas as well as educating [...]
New Simply Signing Initiative For Parents/Teachers
Monday, January 4th, 2010Simply Signing is inviting members to join its new “Now I Can Sign Programme” (NICSP), which is geared to parents and teachers.
The NICSP gives the skills to learn basic vocabulary in Irish sign language (ISL) such as “more” and “all gone”. These signs can be easily introduced to all babies and children from as young [...]
December 5th Creative Play Sessions - UPDATE
Tuesday, November 24th, 2009Update: Owing to the volume of seasonal festivities on Saturday, December 5th, IDK and Helium are postponing the sessions until late January. We apologise for any inconvenience.
On December 5 2009, IDK and Helium will host another Learning Language is Fun! creative play session at the RuaRed arts centre in Tallaght, Dublin. Helium artist, Margot Jones, [...]
Sign Language In Schools Benefits All Students
Tuesday, November 10th, 2009Ballymahon Convent of Mercy Secondary School is breaking ground in deaf education in the midlands with a new deaf unit, which is currently educating two young girls in the mainstream system.
An initiative of Eileen O’Donovan (graduate in Deaf Studies at Trinity College Dublin), the unit was set up in September 2008 and supports several deaf [...]