Deaf STEM Community Alliance and Mainstream Real-Time Captioning Lisa B. Elliot, Ph.D. Rochester Institute of Technology/ National Technical Institute for the Deaf Presentation for the Capacity Building Institute: Promoting the Successful Participation of People with Disabilities in STEM, Seattle, WA February 25-28, 2014 Successful Practices from?the Deaf STEM Community Alliance and C- Print Research Projects Ą Background Ą Both projects emanate from RIT/NTID ? Ą Both started with Ňoff the shelfÓ software ? Ą C-Print research began in 1989, funding from US Department of Education (start 1993), NSF (start 2007) ? Ą Deaf STEM Community Alliance, NSF (start 2011) ? C-Print Ą Provides meaning-for-meaning speech-to-text capture displayed on a variety of devices Đ Captionist types using phonetically-based abbreviations and full words appear on the display, using standard QWERTY keyboards Ą Rationale Ą Not everyone who is deaf or hard of hearing (D/HH) has proficiency in ASL, especially students who have been educated in mainstreamed settings ? Ą ASL vocabulary for STEM is limited, fingerspelling complex! ? Ą Text provides permanent record for very complex information ? C-Print in STEM Labs Photo of two students and?their professor in a biology lab. The student on the left is holding a mobile device and viewing C- Print captioning on the device. Effective Practices in STEM with C-Print=ADAPABILITY! Ą In STEM courses, instructors often use multiple visual displaysŃitŐs important to be able to integrate the text display with other displaysŃ e.g. ŇfloatÓ text on top of a PowerPoint display ? Ą C-Print started as a text-based display; STEM information is graphical as wellŃsoftware adapted to be used on tablets ? Ą STEM courses often require mobility and/or tables full of equipmentŃC-Print was adapted to be displayed on mobile devices as well as laptop computers. ? Floating C-Print The picture at the left shows C-Print text in white in a black background box ŇfloatingÓ on top of a Google+ Hangout C-Print For more information on C-Print: hIp://www.rit.edu/ntid/cprint/ Deaf STEM Community Alliance Ą Initiated in Fall 2011 (NSF HRD-1127955) ? Ą Goal Đ to build a model virtual academic community that supports the academic success of students who are deaf or hard of hearing (D/HH) in STEM majors ?Ą ŇModelÓ= incremental + iterative design ? Deaf STEM Community Alliance Ą Program addresses three critical barriers for D/HH students in STEM with these activities: Đ Student preparation (remote tutoring) Đ Socialization (remote mentoring & social media community) Đ Accessible media (STEM resources & social media community) Deaf STEM Community Alliance Ą Virtual Academic Community Infrastructure Đ Website Đ YouTube Channel?Đ Email channel?Đ Google+ Hangouts platform Đ Google+ private community Deaf STEM Community Alliance Ą What weŐve learned Ą Student preparation & remote tutoring:?Đ One needs to have colleagues who are willing risk takers in adopting new technology for teaching Đ Many ways to use technology for remote tutoring, both synchronous and asynchronous Ą Socialization:?Đ Students need encouragement to use social media for educational purposes Đ Members need encouragement and training to actively participate Deaf STEM Community Alliance Activities Photo below is an example of a synchronous remote tutoring session. The tutor is sitting in his office at his desk and the student is talking with him using Google+ Hangouts. Photo above is an example of a posting in the Google+ private community from a mentor about a job opportunity. Deaf STEM Community Alliance For more information about?the Deaf STEM Community Alliance visit: hIp://www.dhhvac.org