Formación profesional docente

There are a number of projects that have sought to address the increasing education level of Deaf and hard-of-hearing persons. To truly meet the needs of users, in addition to providing guidelines based on technology, it is necessary to understand the users and how they work with their tools [96]. Below are some projects aimed to increase computer literacy levels among Deaf learners.

2.7.1 Project DISNET

Work in this project adapted an e-learning environment, presented for people with special needs especially Deaf and hard-of-hearing persons. The project carried out in Slovenia in 2006 had 337 people participating of whom 22 were Deaf and hard-of-hearing. It incorporated ICT and multimedia materials in a web-based virtual environment making it powerful for this special group of users. The aim of the project was to increase computer literacy among the Deaf and hard-of-hearing learn-ers by using the ECDL/ICDL e-learning materials [33]. The authors focused on the following points:

• Explanation and design of e-learning material and working principle of the system. For an illustration, a short course for e-learning to complete the ECDL modules will be presented.

• Consideration of the needs and demands of the persons with special needs (focus on Deaf and hard-of-hearing persons) and hereby enabled them acces-sibility to e-learning material.

• Description of adapted Learning Management System (LMS) Moodle and working principle using an adapted version of ECDL materials.

The sections below discusses the focus points of the authors.

ECDL modules and need analysis

The e-learning materials used in project DISNET for the education of unemployed adults was the curriculum that had been defined by the ECDL Foundation [25]. The education process took place in the form of courses following a method of blended learning [80]. In the beginning, students met with their tutors and had their first training in a computer room. Further training consisted of individual work through web-based learning material at their homes or at special public ICT-equipped cen-tres. Schedules were set up defining the time frame when tutors were available through the system for additional help. Moodle [38], a course management system

(CMS), provided the support for distance learning because of its user-friendliness, since it supports setup on different platforms.

The needs analysis of Deaf and hard-of-hearing users was made in order to define the design guidelines. This needs analysis was stated in order to increase the avail-ability of learning software for Deaf and hard-of-hearing persons. The ten design guidelines were as follows:

1. To present all audio information visually.

2. To assure the translation of spoken and written text in to sign language using quality video picture.

3. To present subtitles in the video.

4. To offer at least two difficulty levels of text and graphic presentations.

5. To offer a dictionary and a glossary of terms.

6. To assure additional hyperlinks for gathering detailed information.

7. To present a quick and understandable navigation inside the learning material.

8. To assure that web based e-learning material is structured in understandable and logical way.

9. To present a simple user interface in a learning management system offering the tools for user interface personification.

10. To assure that the written language and explanations are relatively easy and readable.

In terms of the video material, the authors considered the main criteria im-proved video quality. The benchmark of the criteria was established by measuring the quality of video communication between Deaf persons as well as according to standardization of video pictures for Deaf persons discussed in Section 2.5.2. The video quality enabled them to capture all the details related to the movements of hands, eyes and mouth clear enough for recognition by a Deaf person. The subti-tles follow a strict guideline. All text equivalents for spoken text, as well as sound

information (for example signals of the operation system.) must be presented. This information was found useful during the needs analysis while following the spoken text and background sound [33].

Description of an e-learning system

Moodle was used for e-contents management and for supervising the activities and progress of the participants. The tools and functions Moodle represent the base support for e-learning, for example: multimedia support contents, forums, question-naires, chat email, etc. In the study, almost all offered tools were used to offer an alternative form of communication.

The e-contents were presented in a simple web (HTML) page. The design was kept simple to avoid complex graphic elements in order to reduce influence of dis-turbing factors that could divert attention from the content [33].

The contents within individual topics were divided into two levels: basic and advanced. Basic levels designed for users having only basic computer skills or be-ginners. Advanced level was designated to users experienced in basic work with the computer. At the end of each lesson, short questions were given that the user could answer several times and in turn the system responded whether the answer was correct or not.

Moodle managed navigation between the two system levels and applications.

Navigation in the system was enabled by hyperlinks in the form of a list of modules, list of chapters, list of tools inside the modules, and path/locator, which changes dynamically according to the chosen link in the hierarchy.

An advantage noted by the authors was the loading speed of the web pages. It was important for them to avoid unnecessary processing of webpages because the video with the instructions had to be loaded fast. The video with the interpreter was encoded as streaming media and put on a dedicated server to speed up streaming time.

Testing of the system was done in two ways: pedagogical and usability. Peda-gogical test evaluated the efficiency of e-learning. PedaPeda-gogical tests gave the users a pre-exam before e-learning and a post-exam after to gauge the learning effect

using the e-learning materials. Usability of the system used a Software Usability Measurement Inventory (SUMI) questionnaire [57].

Results of the tests participants took before and after the courses show that the participants were able to successfully use the e-learning environment with the adapted materials and learn from them [33].

The project goal was similar to ours whereby we intended to increase the level of computer literacy amongst Deaf people using ICDL multimedia-supported material.

We only differ in terms of the use of the World Wide Web to distribute the e-learning materials. This projects provided insight into the design requirements for ICDL lesson content. We adopt the projects approach to design learning material whereby all audio information was represented visually in sign language videos. We also note that the navigation used in the learning material was kept simple which guides us in our work.

We mentioned in Section 1.2 that the Deaf community use SASL as their primary language. This provided insight to providing access to e-learning materials in the Deaf learners’ primary language viz. SASL.