Special needs
Playstation opens doors for the deaf
* Jack Schofield
* guardian.co.uk
Alison Carter, deputy headteacher at Longwill primary school in Birmingham, says the Sony PlayStation Portable is the ideal machine for the school's deaf children. Every child now has his or her own PSP.
They all have plug-in cameras so that they can capture BSL (British Sign Language), which is the school's main language. As the children learn new words, they can film their teacher signing the meaning and the context of each word. "We had kids where their written work wasn't as good as their signing," says Carter. "They improved by signing their stories to the camera, taking the PSP back to their desk and trying to translate what they had said in BSL into written English, which is their second language. That's been very successful."
The school is also creating a library of bedtime stories, which are signed and spoken into PSPs. Children can take their bedtime story home. Carter says: "We'd like to get parents to read and sign bedtime stories so that every deaf child could have a bedtime story every night."
Special needs | Resource | guardian.co.uk
http://kotaku.com/5099518/school-uses-psps-to-help-deaf-children
Playstation opens doors for the deaf
* Jack Schofield
* guardian.co.uk
Alison Carter, deputy headteacher at Longwill primary school in Birmingham, says the Sony PlayStation Portable is the ideal machine for the school's deaf children. Every child now has his or her own PSP.
They all have plug-in cameras so that they can capture BSL (British Sign Language), which is the school's main language. As the children learn new words, they can film their teacher signing the meaning and the context of each word. "We had kids where their written work wasn't as good as their signing," says Carter. "They improved by signing their stories to the camera, taking the PSP back to their desk and trying to translate what they had said in BSL into written English, which is their second language. That's been very successful."
The school is also creating a library of bedtime stories, which are signed and spoken into PSPs. Children can take their bedtime story home. Carter says: "We'd like to get parents to read and sign bedtime stories so that every deaf child could have a bedtime story every night."
Special needs | Resource | guardian.co.uk
http://kotaku.com/5099518/school-uses-psps-to-help-deaf-children
