Mobile Aid for Deaf People Learning Computer Literacy Skills

PROBLEM DEFINITIONDeaf people are often not literate in spoken and written languages. Acquiring computer skills necessitates knowledge of a written language. Learning involves learning the written language in order to learn these skills as opposed to learning in their first language, South African Sign Language (SASL).

GOALTo implement a solution which assists teachers create lesson content based on the ICDL curriculum (e-learner) using an authoring tool and export the lessons to a mobile prototype for Deaf learners to view the lessons as a series of SASL videos and images to teach themselves computer literacy skills.

AUTHORING TOOL• Simple design to allow teachers to create lesson

content for Deaf learners without the need for a programmer.

• Allows teachers to manage lesson resources (SASL videos and images).

• Simple drag and drop to add resources to a lesson• Lessons can be previewed prior to exporting.• Lessons are exported in XML data format

MOBILE PROTOTYPE• Uses XML lessons exported from the Authoring tool.• Simplified design for ease of use by people with low

text literacy skills.• All instructions are in SASL videos with images.• SASL videos and images are stored on the mobile

phone internal memory.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTSWe would like to thank Deaf Community of Cape Town (DCCT) for their involvement and Computer 4 Kids for providing us with the e-learner material. We also thank Marshalan Reddy, Sifiso Duma and Bill Tucker for collaborating in the project.

SYSTEM OVERVIEW

PRELIMINARY RESULTS• All participants understood the information delivered by the application via the SASL videos.• The Deaf participants were individually working at their own pace. This reduced the burden on the teacher and

allowed more time to assist weaker participants without interrupting the class.• Stronger participants helped weaker participants understand the instructions.• Dialectal differences in signs used in the SASL videos were identified.

George G. Ng’ethe1, Edwin H. Blake1 and Meryl Glaser2

Centre in Information and Communication for Development (ICT4D), Department of Computer Science, University of Cape Town1and Deaf Community of Cape Town2