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 [...]
‘Experience’ Books From Off We Go! Publishing
Monday, January 18th, 2010Irish company, Off We Go! Publishing, has released a set of books for children to learn about different first-time experiences in early life.
These books benefit those with special needs and any young child experiencing these outings for the first time.
Twelve different titles are in the series, including “Going on a Plane’, “Going to the Optician” [...]
“Through Sophie’s Eyes” - Deaf Children Do Dance
Monday, November 30th, 2009Traditionally, deaf or hard of hearing people were not taught to dance on the basis that if they couldn’t hear the music, how could the rhythm be kept?
A new children’s book aims to change this. Bristol author Catherine Gibson was driven by outdated ideas to write a book: “Through Sophie’s Eyes,” and tell the story [...]
Inclusive Reading of “Ben” Book At County Library
Monday, November 23rd, 2009Students from Tallaght’s Scoil Colmcille and Sacred Heart National School gathered at County Library for a reading of “A Birthday for Ben” on the Tuesday morning of November 10th.
During this interactive session the book was read by Elizabeth and signed by Christopher. At various stages, the kids stopped to learn the signs of key words [...]
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 [...]
Computers Learn To Identify Signs In TV Footage
Monday, October 26th, 2009Three PhD candidates in the Netherlands have spent the last few years developing technology to recognise sign language in real-time.
One researcher, Jeroen Arendsen, said, “Very little is known about the perception of sign language. The aim of this research was to expand our knowledge of human observation of signing. For instance, it turns out that [...]
Teacher’s Story: Deaf Students In Adult Education
Wednesday, October 14th, 2009More and more deaf students are being taught in third-level classes, some mainstream and others not. Here, Sinead Quealy, from Waterford Institute of Technology (WIT), recounts her experience of teaching a group of adult deaf students. Her experience may help lecturers who teach deaf students.
I taught adults for three years in Waterford City VEC. [...]
An Aspiring Deaf Dentist Identifies The Challenges
Thursday, September 17th, 2009How to lip-read through a surgical mask? This was one of the challenges an aspiring deaf dental student at Trinity College, Dublin, had to consider during their shadow week to identify the hurdles the course will raise.
Read their follow-up interview on TCD’s Deaf Support in Third-Level site … (in word document format)
Interactive Whiteboards Promote Pupils’ IT Literacy
Monday, July 20th, 2009Using interactive whiteboards in mainstream primary school classrooms motivates pupils by offering educational tools with a strong visual learning element. For deaf children who learn visually, whiteboards can contribute to inclusive teaching in many ways.
Interactive teaching directly at the whiteboard is possible, instead of the child missing instructions while at a classroom workstation
The child easily [...]