ASL-STEM Forum (Session M1D)
Richard E. Ladner, University of Washington
Anna C. Cavender, University of Washington
Daniel S. Otero, University of Washington
Computer Science and Engineering
DUB Group, University of Washington
Seattle, WA 98195 USA
cavender, oterod, ladner@cs.washington.edu
Dr. Richard Ladner presented the promising, and to me most exciting, work he and his colleagues have done for the ASL-STEM Forum. The online forum, a video-enabled discussion group for American Sign Language Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math terms, aspires to be a "resource for finding community-accepted signs in technical fields." The forum had 300 signs at the time of the presentation. You may also be interested in the Facebook group page.
Premise: "Often deaf scientists, students, and professionals decide on signs to use on a local (regional) or temporal (the duration of a class or conference) basis. As a result, alternative signs for the same term are developed, and developed signs are lost. Lack of standardization has been recognized for some time and creates obstacles for collaboration and learning." (Cavendar, Otero, Bigham, Ladner, 2010).The Deaf community has embraced video technology for communication -- vlogs, video phones, video social networks (YouTube). Online communities provide a powerful venue for collaboration across time, space, and cultures.
This session resonated with me on several levels. First, I was relieved to see that the same barriers present on a micro level (between different classrooms within our school district, or even within our school) exist at a much more sophisticated level between research institutions. For our staff, this very frustrating situation occurs when an interpreter, teacher, or support person is not privy to vocabulary content prior to the time to interpret. The educator must then interpret lessons "on the fly" with signs unfamiliar to the interpreter. More often, no known sign exists. With advance notice of lesson and vocabulary content, the professional may have time to research low-incidence vocabulary, as well as to collaborate with other professionals to determine the most appropriate sign. Even then, however, the new sign most likely will not match the sign for the same word at a different school. Then, the deaf student must relearn the sign before being able to communicate about it. So, what I should have known, I didn't really know -- we are not alone in our school district with the lack visual language standardization.
I was also excited to see researchers who had identified a significant problem for Deaf students and professionals, and who were combining different types of technology to tackle the problem. Beyond relief and excitement, this session validated and expanded ideas that I have had about using Internet video capabilities for virtual collaboration. These guys did not sit on their ideas. They collaborated and are doing it, and I think IT is going to be big.
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