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Michael Warzynski likes to let his grandparents know he's on his way home from school and to have two grilled-cheese sandwiches ready.
But he doesn't call them on the phone. Instead, he is one of about 50 deaf students in Toronto's public schools using sophisticated two-way pagers to send text messages to teachers, family and friends.
"Before, I didn't speak a lot with my family. But now I find that communication with my family has improved," the 18-year-old said through a sign-language interpreter. "I used to stay home a lot. I was bored. Now, I can contact my friends through the pager and go out."
Preliminary research shows that two-way pagers help improve both the social skills and the independence of deaf students. York University assistant professor Connie Mayer said her research, now in the second of its five-year term, will have implications for education policy in terms of making a case for different technologies to be funded by the government so that deaf students stay on par with their peers.
In Ontario, for example, the provincial government helps pay for hearing aids through its Assistive Devices Program. But two-way pagers are not funded, one school official said.
Prof. Mayer said the next phase of her research will focus on how students using pagers improve their literacy skills. Studies have shown that on average deaf students graduate with Grade 4 literacy skills, primarily because the English language is phonetic-based, she said.
"This may be technology that opens a lot of doors for our students around independence, and we hope around literacy," she said at a press conference yesterday. When deaf students, their parents and teachers at three Toronto public schools -- Danforth Collegiate and Technology Institute, which Mr. Warzynski attends, Northern Secondary School and Davisville/Metropolitan School for the Deaf Public School -- first started using the pagers, researchers noticed some were sending only 10 messages a month.
Today, those students are sending and receiving more than 3,000 messages a month, the researchers say, a sign that deaf pupils may have become more comfortable with their writing skills.
Before Mr. Warzynski had the pager, he had to ask someone to call home if he was running late at school. These days, he just sends a text message to his parents or grandparents.
As to how fast he can type, Mr. Warzynski jokes that it all depends on his mood. "If I'm in a good mood, I can type really quickly. If I'm in a bad mood, then, hey, I just let it slide," he said.
His mother, Ruth Warzynski, says he communicates more through his pager, especially with his grandparents. His vocabulary and spelling skills have also shown improvement, she said. "He has started to write more and think about how he is saying it," she said.
"At home, he'll say a sentence. On the mobile, he'll go on and on and on," Ms. Warzynski said. "It's made life much, much easier."
The two-way pagers let deaf students also communicate with their hearing friends, allowing them to send text messages to a person's cellphone.
Shona Farrelly, initiator of the pager program and principal of Davisville/Metropolitan School for the Deaf, said many deaf students told her that they were not allowed to go out at night with friends. Their parents feared that there was no way to contact them.
Ms. Farrelly approached Bell Mobility, which donated 250 pagers for students and their parents, with five years of service and maintenance, something that would have cost the school board well over $600,000, she said.
"While excellent technology in its time, the [telecommunications device for the deaf] has probably outlived its existence now. It could be replaced much more efficiently by a two-way text-message pager," Ms. Farrelly said. "The fact that the kids now call their parents and call their teachers . . . these are all really good, really positive things."
By Caroline Alphonso
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/TPStory/LAC/20041103/SCHOOLDEAF03/TPEducation/
But he doesn't call them on the phone. Instead, he is one of about 50 deaf students in Toronto's public schools using sophisticated two-way pagers to send text messages to teachers, family and friends.
"Before, I didn't speak a lot with my family. But now I find that communication with my family has improved," the 18-year-old said through a sign-language interpreter. "I used to stay home a lot. I was bored. Now, I can contact my friends through the pager and go out."
Preliminary research shows that two-way pagers help improve both the social skills and the independence of deaf students. York University assistant professor Connie Mayer said her research, now in the second of its five-year term, will have implications for education policy in terms of making a case for different technologies to be funded by the government so that deaf students stay on par with their peers.
In Ontario, for example, the provincial government helps pay for hearing aids through its Assistive Devices Program. But two-way pagers are not funded, one school official said.
Prof. Mayer said the next phase of her research will focus on how students using pagers improve their literacy skills. Studies have shown that on average deaf students graduate with Grade 4 literacy skills, primarily because the English language is phonetic-based, she said.
"This may be technology that opens a lot of doors for our students around independence, and we hope around literacy," she said at a press conference yesterday. When deaf students, their parents and teachers at three Toronto public schools -- Danforth Collegiate and Technology Institute, which Mr. Warzynski attends, Northern Secondary School and Davisville/Metropolitan School for the Deaf Public School -- first started using the pagers, researchers noticed some were sending only 10 messages a month.
Today, those students are sending and receiving more than 3,000 messages a month, the researchers say, a sign that deaf pupils may have become more comfortable with their writing skills.
Before Mr. Warzynski had the pager, he had to ask someone to call home if he was running late at school. These days, he just sends a text message to his parents or grandparents.
As to how fast he can type, Mr. Warzynski jokes that it all depends on his mood. "If I'm in a good mood, I can type really quickly. If I'm in a bad mood, then, hey, I just let it slide," he said.
His mother, Ruth Warzynski, says he communicates more through his pager, especially with his grandparents. His vocabulary and spelling skills have also shown improvement, she said. "He has started to write more and think about how he is saying it," she said.
"At home, he'll say a sentence. On the mobile, he'll go on and on and on," Ms. Warzynski said. "It's made life much, much easier."
The two-way pagers let deaf students also communicate with their hearing friends, allowing them to send text messages to a person's cellphone.
Shona Farrelly, initiator of the pager program and principal of Davisville/Metropolitan School for the Deaf, said many deaf students told her that they were not allowed to go out at night with friends. Their parents feared that there was no way to contact them.
Ms. Farrelly approached Bell Mobility, which donated 250 pagers for students and their parents, with five years of service and maintenance, something that would have cost the school board well over $600,000, she said.
"While excellent technology in its time, the [telecommunications device for the deaf] has probably outlived its existence now. It could be replaced much more efficiently by a two-way text-message pager," Ms. Farrelly said. "The fact that the kids now call their parents and call their teachers . . . these are all really good, really positive things."
By Caroline Alphonso
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/TPStory/LAC/20041103/SCHOOLDEAF03/TPEducation/