Hearing+impairment+and+Voicethread

Hearing impairment and Voicethread

Hearing impairment occurs when there's a problem with or damage to one or more parts of the ear. Some people have partial hearing loss, and others have complete hearing loss. According to the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders, about 28 million Americans are deaf or hearing impaired. That's about 1 out of every 10 people.

[|VoiceThread] is an online communication tool that allows students and instructors to be a part of a discussion thread. By contributing to the discussion, you can use the following tools: text, a microphone, a web cam, a telephone, or uploaded audio file. VoiceThread provides a visually centered learning environment in which students participate by entering and applying new ideas from the unit they are learning about. When you think about what Voicethread is, it’s exactly what it says, it’s a “thread” of people using their voice to discuss topics. This would be a major barrier for a hearing disabled person. They would have a hard time using this at first because of their impairment.

A hearing disabled person would be able to use Voicethread by using its other “voice” options. For caption purposes**,** a VoiceThread video can be exported, allowing you to save a fixed copy that can be captioned. This file plays as a movie, just like the VoiceThread would if you viewed it on the VoiceThread site. Another option is to use the video part to record students using sign language. Voicethread also allows you to text and read instead of listening to a video. A hearing impaired person would benefit from using Voicethread because it allows them to use different ways other than speaking to communicate with other students. They can communicate through texting, sign language, and pictures. So through different ways, any type of student can use Voicethread and it’s many benefits!

Resources:

http://accessibility.psu.edu/voicethread http://kidshealth.org/teen/diseases_conditions/sight/hearing_impairment.html#

Voice Thread Accessibility - Hearing impaired Voice Thread is a great online communication web 2.0 tool; when contemplating of how VoiceThread can be used by someone who is deaf especially when the purpose is for someone to be able to hear what the thread is in reference to. This tool can be modified with addition of features to allow students with hearing impairments to be able to communicate with each other. One example is where students were able to comment on Voice Thread with video commenting where they could sign language their comments. This in returns goes to how the students were able to hear what was being stated to be able to sign language a comment, with the option of video captions and/or audio transcripts any voice thread can be read. There are numerous alternatives to this option such as using speech recognition software these could include Dragon Naturally Speaking, Movie Captioner, CapScribe, and MAGPIE. Communication is such an important aspect of teaching and students have to be able to understand to communicate with each other. The question here is how does a student that is sitting in a classroom and can see students speaking and making conversation, but there are no sounds being made? There is now technology that can be used to take in these sounds and convert to text. The TypeWell System is a so-called transcriber that can take discussions and convert it into text. The student is able to use this in class, for later review, and/or notes needed for class. The barriers are at times strenuous but can be overcome with the right technology.

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