Watch Deaf students at the high school. Write a post which discusses the topic introduced by these students. Also, post how technology can assist in merging hearing impaired students into classrooms.
The students in this video are deaf. The common perception that hearing impaired (HI) students (or similarly handicapped students) have to be taught differently and separately is becoming an outdated idea. These students show that they are not so different from their hearing classmates. They demonstrate that they have the same learning capacity as the other students. The one thing separating them from the other students is merely their inability to hear. Originally, the commonly accepted idea was that the deaf were unteachable due to teachers being unable to communicate with them. Later, the deaf were made to attend separate schools from the hearing. In these schools for the hearing impaired, they are taught by educators who either are also deaf or are fluent in sign language. To date, deaf students either attend these special schools or have interpreters assist them in public schools. With technology, more and more deaf students are being able to attend public schools. This technology goes further than the advances made in hear-aids and cochlear implants. Students with hearing-aids used to have to sit in desks that allow for the best view of the teacher, but even that doesn't account for the acoustics of the classroom differing from that of their home environment. An assistive listening system allows a HI student to hear the teacher clearly and breaks background noise. There are also TDD (telecommunication devices for the deaf) which allow for communication in caption/text. HI students can use devices that convert the teachers live lesson into closed caption. Teachers and fellow students could utilize a video dictionary to learn to communicate with the HI in sign language.With these devices, a word or sentence can be typed into the device and a video will interpret the word or sentence into the selected sign language. In the age of video lectures and Skype, the HI can see their instructor or the person they are communicating with. Each party could communicate through sign. With the increase in technology, we will see an increase in assistive technology for the hearing impaired.
Hi Ann-Marie!
ReplyDeleteI think this is a great idea for a blog assignment! It really makes people think about how students are taught and what can be done to make the learning experience more cohesive for everyone! Your blog looks awesome as well! Good luck with finals and everything coming up!