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Gallaudet Brings Accessibility to Classroom Capture
11/7/2007
"It's a challenge area for [Gallaudet] students," Parks, himself a Gallaudet graduate, said through an interpreter. "We have to get them successfully to pass; we need to get them out of developmental math and into algebra."
Realizing that math was a key area to address, the university began with that subject in 2005 with Apreso and has since added other courses as well, growing the program from four classes in spring 2006 to 20 classes in spring 2007. Following the MIT model of making select curriculum materials available free of charge, Gallaudet is now working to distribute its Math Concepts and Algebra course content free of charge to high schools.
The content Gallaudet has captured is "designed for our university," Parks said, "but it is available [free of charge] to anyone in the world." That sort of content can be a tremendous advantage to deaf students in various parts of the United States and the world, he said, that lack access to signed math classes, especially in K-12. That includes, Parks pointed out, deaf students who are isolated in rural areas.
Distributing course content via Apreso has had a number of additional advantages, Parks said, including the ability for students to revisit difficult material again and again or to attend a missed class online and thus avoid falling behind. The system can also improve concentration, he said, freeing students from focusing their attention during class on simply taking notes.
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Linda L. Briggs is a freelance writer based in San Diego, Calif.
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