Overview

Gallaudet University in Washington, D.C. is the world’s only university dedicated to providing liberal education and career development for deaf and hard-of-hearing students. With 1,800 students in undergraduate and graduate programs, and more than 40% of the faculty and staff using sign language, life on campus and in the classroom is unlike anywhere else.

Gallaudet set out to find a way to utilize technology to help students improve their learning and deal with the challenges of sign language in the classroom environment. Video was the perfect way to reach their technology-savvy student body. “Students today have grown up with a pacifier in one hand and a mouse in the other,” said Earl Parks, Director, Academic Technology.

Choosing the Right Technology

After evaluating several classroom video capture options, Gallaudet University selected the Echo³⁶⁰ EchoSystem. The idea of “TiVo” for the classroom appealed to both faculty and students, and the university saw several other major benefits:

• Playback and device options for their millennial students, including Mac platforms and mobile devices
• Echo³⁶⁰’s commitment to captioning (text display synched with video) in compliance with Section 508
• Simplicity of video recording and capture of computer screens and animation
• Integration with Blackboard
• Instructors wouldn’t have to be trained on the technology

Immediate feedback was that with the camera capturing only video of the professor, questions and interaction with students were missed because the students used sign language. Gallaudet developed a solution using robotic cameras and a touch panel, so students could “press to sign.” Pressing the button causes the camera to automatically rotate from the instructor to the student, record the video, and mix it into the lecture. This “press to sign” technology was integrated with the EchoSystem to give students a replay of the entire class session.

How EchoSystem Works at Gallaudet

The program grew to 20 classrooms by spring of 2007, with 60 hours of courseware per week being loaded and accessed via Blackboard. Instructors arrive and just do what they do best – teach and share information – while the class is automatically recorded. Gallaudet then transcribes the video and sends it out to a third party to be synchronized. Once it is uploaded, video lectures with closed captioning and visual aids are then available via Blackboard. The video is high quality, which is important for the small distinctions that are part of sign language. Students can also play it back at different speeds, depending on their signing ability.

Students More Engaged, Comprehension Improved

The Echo³⁶⁰ solution has allowed students the freedom of participating and interacting in class, instead of juggling note-taking with watching sign language. Deborah Chen Pichler, a linguistics professor at Gallaudet, found this technology invaluable in her syntax and structure of language class, a highly technical course requiring intensive practice during class time. “Those who use it have told me it has been a real life saver. As deaf students, they need to be looking at the professor throughout the entire lecture; they can’t be taking notes.”

Professor Pichler continues, “It helps them learn more effectively because they can concentrate on me during the lecture. They don’t have to split their time anymore during lectures; they just focus on what is going on in class.”

The EchoSystem has also given students greater access to the class material, allowing more time for learning, review and retention. For many, this has translated to a change in learning outcomes. Chris Morney, associate professor at Gallaudet University, comments, “Last semester, I had two sections of the same class. One was in a room with Echo³⁶⁰ and one was not. At the end of the semester, the grades in the classroom where I had Echo³⁶⁰ were measurably higher than the classroom where I did not.”