Breaking Barriers
December 21, 2011
This interview and the corresponding article appeared in the December 2011 issue of International Innovation. International Innovation is the leading global dissemination resource for the wider scientific, technology and research communities, dedicated to disseminating the latest science, research and technological innovations on a global level. More information and a complimentary subscription offer to the publication can be found at: www.researchmedia.eu.
Principal Investigator Ms. Judy Vesel explains how an illustrated and interactive 3D dictionary – developed by a TERC research group using SigningAvatar® technology – is enabling deaf and hard of hearing high school students to take command of complex Earth Science terms and definitions.
To begin, could you explain your project’s objectives?
The goals of the project are to:
Can you outline some of the ways the Signing Earth Science Dictionary (SESD) improves upon traditional Earth Science education programmes? How does your approach address these problem areas?
The SESD includes 750 key Earth Science terms and is the first tool of its kind to bring high school Earth Science learning to life using characters that sign. It is powered by Vcom3D’s SigningAvatar® technology and incorporates interactive features that support Universal Design for Learning. As such, it provides members of the target population with the language support they need to access Earth Science content delivered on the web, via electronic media, in hard copy and in conversation.
How have you applied the technology and thinking behind the SESD to other subject areas? Were any special modifications required to adapt the dictionary to the different subject matters?
The rationale for the SESD is based on a disciplinary and conceptual research base. A component of the conceptual research base uses the partners’ prior research and development of their Signing Science Dictionary (SSD) for 9-14 year olds as evidence of the potential effectiveness of the SESD. Although the SSD was developed for younger students, comparison of the pre- and post-use scores for 14-16 year old students who also used the dictionary showed significant improvement in vocabulary and content knowledge and in the ability to engage independently in learning and communication of scientific ideas.
The SESD belongs to a body of work referred to as Signing Math and Science that includes a Signing Math Pictionary for ages 5-9 and the SSD. For these, and all of the dictionaries, research and development includes: identifying the terms to be included; developing the parts of speech and definitions; scripting the text components in Amercan Sign Language (ASL) and Signed English (SE); identifying and developing illustrations; refining the interface and integrating the terms; and conducting an evaluation for usability and effectiveness.
How was the SigningAvatar® technology developed and what makes it unique in its concept?
Vcom3D has researched and developed the SigningAvatar® animation technology that provides sign language access to digital media using 3D animated characters known as avatars. This technology is used for the SESD. Because it runs in an Internet browser or as stand-alone software, SigningAvatar® content can be embedded in web pages or stored on an Internet server or CD-ROM. Designed for use with Windows and Vista operating systems, it has been developed using cross-platform Java, XML, and Extensible 3D (X3D) standards to maximise portability across multiple platforms.
In the underlying SigningAvatar® technology, each sign is stored as motions of body joints as a function of time in a reusable library of animations that can be assembled, using Vcom3D’s Sign SmithTM Studio Authoring Tool, to create new passages. The signs in this library are made using standard desktop animation software. This Sign SmithTM Studio Authoring Tool also allows each sign to be ‘inflected’ to indicate spatial references, classifiers, role shifting, emphasis, time, and other elements of ASL grammar. Facial expressions are stored in a library that can be accessed by the Authoring Tool, so that grammatical ASL and SE passages can be created using only the desktop software. Working with the Authoring Tool, an interpreter develops low-bandwidth, easily edited ‘scripts’ that tell the Avatar what to sign. The signed translation of 100 pages of text can be stored on a single floppy disk (1.4 MB), or downloaded in minutes. Signs animated for one Avatar character can be readily applied to other characters.
To download the rest of this article and learn more about the Signing Earth Science Dictionary (SESD), please visit the following link .
For more, see http://www.theiagd.org/resources/deaf-and-hard-of-hearing-resources/.
