HCC-Small: DHH Cyber-Community - Supporting Deaf and Hard of Hearing Students in STEM Fields

在主流大学(各级)取得成功对聋人和重听学生来说是额外的挑战。熟练的手语翻译员和具有高级领域知识的捕获者往往很难找到，课堂上的多种视觉信息渠道可能很难同时进行，而且由于语言障碍，课堂内外的合作往往很困难。此外，将高级STEM(科学、技术、工程和数学)主题翻译成美国手语(ASL)还远未标准化，往往需要学生和口译员讨论才能设计出一致的手语。为了让聋人和重听学生在科学上取得进步，更好地接触课堂活动和为STEM主题建立一个一致的、概念上清晰的签名系统都是至关重要的。因此，在这个项目中，PI将设计、实施和评估两种不同但相互关联的技术。其中第一个是ClassInFocus，这是一个课堂平台，帮助学生访问远程口译器和采集器，避免视觉分散，并促进课堂互动。ClassInFocus将利用多所大学现有的高带宽互联网连接，为特定的STEM主题寻找最合格的口译员或捕获者创造更多机会。设计、实施和评估最能满足聋人和重听学生教育需求的技术解决方案是一个具有挑战性的研究问题；这种沉浸式技术以一种可访问和不引人注目的方式将许多不同的技术和人力资源带入课堂，对该领域来说是新的。ASL-STEM论坛是这项工作的第二个主旨，它将是一个在线视频论坛，以促进关于签署STEM主题的讨论。社区成员之间的视觉协作，在这种情况下是聋人社区，对于确保自然的、概念上的正确和社区批准的语言进步是重要的。设计、实施和评估一个网络基础设施解决方案，以促进关于STEM内容的ASL词汇和语法的讨论，最终将作为学生、教师和参与STEM领域ASL的口译人员的资源，是另一个具有挑战性的研究问题。使用社交网络技术让聋人和重听社区参与关于ASL主题和STEM领域词汇的讨论，这对该领域来说是全新的。这项研究将涉及与加洛德特大学罗切斯特理工学院的国家聋人技术研究所和Shodor教育基金会的合作。广泛的影响：作为研究成果而开发的新技术将通过改善学习环境和获得STEM内容的语言途径，使聋哑人和重听学生能够更好地进入STEM领域。这不仅增加了聋人获得大学和研究生学位的可能性，还将增加聋人和重听人参与新技术的开发和研究。其他学生也可能从这项技术中受益，因为数字笔记和字幕为有学习障碍的学生提供了替代途径，并为课堂内容的可搜索档案创造了机会。

Succeeding in mainstream universities (at all levels) involves extra challenges for deaf and hard of hearing students. Skilled sign language interpreters and captioners with advanced domain knowledge are often difficult to find, multiple visual channels of information in the classroom can be hard to juggle, and collaboration both inside and outside the classroom is often strained due to language barriers. Furthermore, translation of advanced STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) topics into American Sign Language (ASL) is far from standardized, and often requires discussion between students and interpreters to devise consistent signs. Better access to classroom activities and a consistent, conceptually clear signing system for STEM topics are both vitally needed in order for deaf and hard of hearing students to advance in the sciences. Thus, in this project the PI will design, implement, and evaluate two distinct yet interconnected technologies. The first of these is ClassInFocus, a classroom platform to help students access remote interpreters and captioners, avoid visual dispersion, and facilitate interaction in the classroom. ClassInFocus will utilize the existing high bandwidth internet connections at multiple universities to create more opportunity for finding the best qualified interpreter or captioner for specific STEM topics. Designing, implementing, and evaluating technological solutions that best meet the educational needs of deaf and hard of hearing students is a challenging research problem; this immersive technology that brings many different technical and human resources into the classroom in an accessible and unobtrusive way is new to the field. ASL-STEM Forum, the second thrust of this work, will be an on-line video forum to facilitate discussion about signing for STEM topics. Visual collaboration between members of the community, in this case the Deaf Community, is important to ensure natural, conceptually correct, and community approved language progression. Designing, implementing, and evaluating a cyberinfrastructure solution to facilitate discussion about ASL vocabulary and grammar for STEM content, that will eventually serve as a resource for students, teachers, and interpreters involved in ASL for STEM fields, is another challenging research problem. Using social networking techniques to engage the deaf and hard of hearing community in discussions about ASL topics and vocabulary in STEM fields is entirely new to the field. This research will involve collaboration with the National Technical Institute for the Deaf at Rochester Institute of Technology, Gallaudet University, and the Shodor Education Foundation.Broader Impacts: The new technologies to be developed as outcomes of this research will enable deaf and hard of hearing students to better access the STEM fields by improving the learning environment and the linguistic access to STEM content. Not only does this increase the likelihood that deaf people will attain college and graduate degrees, it will increase the participation of deaf and hard of hearing people in the development and research of new technology. Other students may also benefit from this technology, as digital notes and captions provide alternative access for students with learning disabilities and create opportunities for searchable archives of class content.