 Thank you, Brianna. So we're being recorded because this presentation question and answer session will be, you know, for posterity so other people can see it in the future. Not everybody can come at this hour. So I'm Richard Ladner, a professor emeritus at the University of Washington in Seattle, and I run the Access CS for All program. And I want to welcome you to our second in a series of four. This is accessible computer science for deaf and hard of hearing. We have two more coming up. One on teaching students with learning disabilities and one teaching neurodiverse students. So you can look forward to those as well. And some of you might have come a couple of weeks ago when we had a blind and visually impaired. So we're really fortunate today to have an experienced teacher of deaf students deaf and hard of hearing students, Beth Kimball. She teaches at the Indiana School for the deaf. And interesting story. When my mother graduated from Gallaudet University in 1932 or so, no, 1936. Her first job was at the teaching at the Indiana School for the deaf. And then shortly thereafter, that year, my father wrote her note. Actually, there's a whole series of letters that they corresponded as he proposed to her. And she came back and brought her back to California where they where I grew up. Anyway, I don't want to prolong this. And Beth, please go ahead. This evening, we'll be talking about how to make computer science accessible for deaf students and hard of hearing students or language deprived students or students who may have some type of hearing loss. I'd like to introduce myself first. My name is Beth Kimball. And this is my sign name. It's an R across my head. I teach middle school, STEM classes at Indiana School for the deaf, also known as ISD. I can teach computer science, math, science, a whole host of other classes, typically classes that other teachers are not interested in teaching or nervous about teaching. I take over those courses. I have taught computer science to middle school and high school students for the last eight, almost nine years. It said six, but prior to that, I had other experiences so really close to nine years. My major was in biology and deaf education and outdoor experiential education. And engineering. So I graduated two years ago with a PhD in environmental engineering. But now I have been enjoying teaching middle school. And it's that awkward age level. And I'm going to continue doing that at this time. My passion is being involved in my hobbies, such as reading, working on bicycles, and my two dogs, got two very small dogs. I started computer science teaching really accidentally. I was teaching science and someone asked me about signing up for a workshop. So in my head, it was like, really, you want me to teach computer science. I tried to tell this person, you realize that my background, I grew up without electricity, without computers, they're like, Oh, no, no, no, you're so intelligent. I know you can handle it. And so I just did it on a whim. It was for free professional development. So I went and really enjoyed interacting with others and learned a lot and realized that computer science is not actually about the computer, the mechanism itself, it's more about playing around, making mistakes and learning. And that is really the piece that I enjoy. I do like teaching computer science actually better than the other classes I teach. But I'm not going to tell my principal that I lost my hearing around age 24. Currently, I do use ASL all day long in my work environment and in my life. And I do also use English in other parts of my life as well. So I do use one or the other. However, I don't use simultaneous communication, I choose a language to use, whether it be sign language in the moment, or English in the moment. I want to emphasize for those of you that are that may have currently a deaf or hard of hearing student in the classroom or may at some time in the future, what these individuals identities may look like if they are part of the deaf community. They consider themselves deaf and they use it as a proper noun with a capital D as part of the community that is an identity and they are proud of that identity. If the person has a hearing loss and they're viewing it from a medical perspective and just in terms of their loss of hearing and not regarding their use of the language of ASL, then it is a common noun with a lowercase D, deaf. And for your students, it will all depend on their background, where they come from, what their identity is, whether or not they use that as a proper noun or a common noun. Beth, this is Richard. I wanted to ask you, could you explain what ASL is? You mentioned ASL that some people might not know what that is. Oh, I apologize. Yes, ASL is American Sign Language. It is the standard language of communication for the deaf community in America. It is a full language with its own grammar, its own syntax, and it does include cultural aspects. I want to be clear, it's not a mode of communication, but it is a language. It's called ASL. My primary language currently is English, but really ASL is my primary language. You may have seen different causes of deafness. It can be biologically caused, medical, there are different views. There are over 250 different causes of deafness. Some of those are congenital. It's in the DNA. It could be from connex26, which is a particular chromosome defect that is missing a particular gene. That is very common to be a cause of deafness. It could also be, there could be other primary issues such as charge syndrome. That comes with height issues, heart issues, physical defects, but it also does cause deafness. It could be a premature birth. If a baby is born sometime around 24 weeks, they often have a hearing loss of some sort. Or it could also be related to a maternal illness. The mother may have had a high fever before the child was born. Or it could even be they lose their hearing later in life due to an illness as a child, as a teenager, an extremely high fever can cause hearing loss as well. Or it could be that an individual is born with some vision issues and later loses their hearing, which is typically related to having Usher syndrome. There are a whole host of reasons that someone could be deaf. Very similar to other special needs. If you know one deaf person, you have to realize that you only know one deaf person and what their life is like. That does not apply to all deaf students. Not every one deaf student is the same as any other. For our demographics in America, we have about 76,000 deaf or deafblind students who receive services under IDEA, which is the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. That's from years 2018 to 2019. There is not current data from 2019, 2020 and on. But at that time, 76,000 children were identified to be receiving some type of service or a some type of hearing loss. And this is those that have their primary disability as being deaf or deafblind. So if their primary disability is autism and they have a secondary disability of being deaf, those students are not considered in that number of 76,000. A huge percentage of our deaf and hard of hearing students are attending the public schools. They are mainstream. They do not come to a deaf school. 90% of our students are mainstreamed into the public school classroom. In bigger cities, there may be a few more deaf students in those deaf programs. They may actually have a deaf program versus a student being all alone in the classroom as the only deaf student. But typically, there is one deaf student or one deaf or hard of hearing student mainstreamed into their public school program. A larger number of those students all being hearing. So if you have any questions about the percentages for other disabilities that are out there, there is a link that's been provided. You can see here on the slide. But specifically deaf and hard of hearing students, it is 76,000, which is 90% of those students. Also, 90%, that 90% I was referring to of those students do have parents that can hear. So these hearing parents have a baby and they have this deaf child. And often they don't know what to do. So how they interact, how they communicate with their children, they may get a cochlear implant for their child, they may get hearing aids for their child, they may do speech therapy, they may use sign language, they may put their child in a deaf school. It is quite individualized. And it's a family decision. And they base that what's best on what's best for their child for their family, whether or not that whatever works, because 90% of our deaf and hard of hearing students do have hearing parents, automatically there is a disconnect between the cultures. When a deaf child is born, they have a different identity or just that feeling of otherness difference from their parents. Hearing child picks up language watching TV, talking on the phone. A deaf child does not have that same experience and they can be easily isolated. So parents have to decide, are they going to learn ASL? Are they going to practice that in the home? Are they going to focus on speech? Will they use both sign language and speech? Will they get their child a cochlear implant through surgical procedure, or use hearing aids? It varies. What we see and consider as the best decision may not be possible. Remember, the parents view this child and they have this child. And when you think about them learning a new language such as ASL, picking up that language while working full time, taking care of their children, it's a big adjustment and a big challenge to face as a family. So we can't judge parents based on what they choose to do for their child. It's their decision and we have to trust that they know best. As I mentioned before, it's not unusual. It is not rare for there to be just one deaf child in the whole school. Completely alone. Potentially even kindergarten through 12th grade, there may only be one deaf child. And there may have never been a deaf child in that school until maybe up to 10th grade. That's just the way it goes. Or it may be that a child transfers in from another school or a family moves. And that may, it may even be that a child has a recent diagnosis. They haven't even been previously diagnosed. And it may seem as if they're getting by, it may seem that they can hear. And they may really start to struggle as the classwork gets more challenging. It is easy for children to fake it, especially in elementary school, they can get by trying to rely on as much as they can hear and following others. And they can wing it. But by the time they get into middle school, it becomes much more challenging. They typically they may have reading delays, they may start missing out on information. They may be embarrassed by that, they may not want to ask for someone to repeat information. And so they start to push it aside. And that's where the schools may find that a child is struggling and they may do some testing and determine that they fit in another classroom. Often deaf kids in the public school will have pullout services for speech. They may have OT, PT, there's a variety of services they may benefit from. Because deaf children need language access, they need to catch up and they need that additional practice. They may have they may be a bit behind in the public schools, but some may not be behind. So it just varies from student to student, just individually based. Before I delve into computer science, I do want to talk a bit about the deaf experience in the public school. A deaf student is in the classroom, and you have to understand that there's all this auditory information being given by the students, by the teacher in the front of the classroom. That student will not have access to all of that. They may feel disconnected from the other students in the classroom. They may feel isolated. They may even feel some anxiety, some paranoia, because they don't know what people are saying, what they're talking about. They'll be missing information. A common experience for a deaf student can be that they feel that their teacher doesn't like them or hates them. They're often exhausted. They don't want to wear the FM system because the teacher doesn't want to do that, doesn't want to make those accommodations for their needs, that the teacher doesn't want to give them additional support or doesn't want to interact with the interpreter. They also often feel that the teacher doesn't know how to use the closed captioning. These are all feelings of the students in middle school and high school. So they honestly do sometimes have that feeling that the teacher hates them, and that's only because the teacher may be exhausted or confused. That's their perspective. That's their experience in the public school. Funny story that I have seen from a lot of students in public school when they wear the FM systems, which I'll talk a bit more about the technology later. But basically, an FM system is basically direct Bluetooth to the student's hearing aid. And the teacher wears a microphone, and it goes directly into their hearing aid as if they are right nearby, regardless of where the teacher is standing. What happens often is the teacher will forget to turn off the FM system after teaching. And we'll head to the restroom, or go to the teacher's lounge, or maybe go see the secretary in the secretary's office. And yet that's still close enough to that Bluetooth connection that that student can overhear the teacher in the restroom using the bathroom, having conversations with teachers in the teachers lounge, everything. Often the kids do feel very connected or disconnected, excuse me, from the hearing world, the world at large, because they feel different. And they feel they can't communicate or can't understand everything. You know, all you can do is your best for the students. Obviously, you can't be perfect for everyone. So if you do some analysis and realize that you can improve in certain areas, I think that's enough dialogue with the students interact with other individuals in the deaf community. That is enough. We don't expect all deaf and hard of hearing kids to be able to come to the deaf school. That's not going to happen. We want whatever best or most successful for that individual student. So if that means that they need to be mainstreamed in the public school and be the only deaf student there, that's fine. If it means that they come to our school, that's fine. It's whatever worked for those individual students, educational options for deaf students. As I said before, they can be mainstreamed in the public school setting. They may have an interpreter, sign language interpreter. They may use hearing aids, they may use an FM system with the teacher or other accommodations, whatever that student needs. It may be notes printed, it may be note taking, it may be videos captioned, things on zoom can be done. It may be one on one support from the deaf and hard of hearing teacher, whatever that individual student needs. In more urban settings in the public schools, there may be several deaf students in a program. So that means that they may have the finances, the budget to have an actual deaf program at that school. They may have a teacher of the deaf, who teaches the deaf students. It would be a deaf or a hearing teacher, but they would be providing direct instruction using sign language, or even using other types of communication modes, but it would be more direct instruction from the teacher to the deaf students, not a teacher and an interpreter and a deaf student. So in some cases, there may be a program where the teachers are able to directly instruct the students. There are a few places in the United States such as Chicago, they have one New York has a few programs where and in New England, there are multiple programs in Washington State as well. Again, dependent on the particular community and their needs, they may have programs like that. And third option is that they may come to the deaf school, like the school that I teach at where the students receive direct instruction from the teachers. Most of our teachers are deaf. Where their first language or their primary language was ASL. And we have a class full of deaf students who are all using ASL. So there is direct communication. There's no delay in communication. There's no awkwardness. There's no interpreter needed. It looks just like any other school. The only difference is the language that's being used. That's all. Some deaf schools don't necessarily use ASL. They have a focus on spoken language. So the teachers use spoken language. And it's a family decision that they want to just use spoken English. And that works for them. However, those accommodations are made to meet the needs of the student. Some schools do use cute speech. And so the teacher is speaking. And while they speak, they actually are showing where the sounds are happening on the face. It is a mode of communication. It is not a language. But there are some people that prefer to use cute speech. They feel that it connects them better to the hearing world and spoken English. Many schools use signing exact English, which is called C. American Sign Language has grammar and syntax. It is its own language. If we tried to put that in English, it would not work because it's not English. However, signing exact English is signing every exact word in English. So the word the and a, swinging, all those parts of the word are shown in signing exact English. Beth? Yeah, just a point about signed English. American Sign Language is efficient. It's, you know, information rates similar to speaking. And you're using these really big muscles in your arms and makers and stuff like that. So, you know, each sign has to have a lot of information in it. And in C or in sign English, you have to take this spoken language and do sort of an exact match using these big muscles. So everything is slow. It's much slower than ASL. So it's, I don't know the percentage slowness, but it's at least 50% slower. So it has, it's very inefficient. And so after learning in C, most kids go on and learn ASL because it's much more efficient. Yes, and it depends on where they are headed in their lives. If, where they live, has that, if they have that opportunity to learn ASL, absolutely they will. But if not, then some do stick with signing exact English. So it just depends on their life journey, honestly. But Richard, you are right. I do remember from grad school, signing exact English or C, that's called a linear language. We call that a linear language. So everything is in order in a line ASL, American Sign Language is a vertical language. So you can sign and include the grammatical structures with facial grammars and body language, where one sign combines all of those aspects and has a multitude of meanings and can create an entire sentence. So yes, ASL is more efficient, much quicker than spoken language. If you know ASL, if you know how to sign. Are you ready to switch? So maybe you have a deaf and hard of hearing student that is using different types of technology. So I'm not talking about iPads or computers or that type of technology. What I'm talking about is their own personal assistive technology for their hearing accessibility. So for example, they're called smart hearing aids. So if they're using that assistive technology that has Bluetooth capability, for example, with my hearing aids, I'm able to listen to music from my iPad through my hearing aids. And so that's one way that we can use that type of technology or I'm able to connect to an FM system directly through my own hearing aids. I can listen to announcements in the airport or in the grocery store or adjust my settings for different types of environments. Or I can connect to my iPhone, for example, to be able to use my hearing. For some deaf individuals that are more profoundly deaf, they might take advantage of the cochlear implant process, which is actually a surgical procedure that connects technology to the inner part of the ear and the cochlea. And it's connected directly to a device that allows them to be able to hear auditory or it connects to their auditory nerve. So it basically bypasses their ear for that part of the ear that does not work and connects directly to that nerve to help them have that hearing function. One of the really nice things about that is I have an implant and it doesn't mean that I'm able to hear everything exactly. But I can hear announcements in the store. I can hear someone walking behind me. I might be able to pick up environmental noise. I might hear something that's happening in my environment. So that is one of the really nice things that I'm able to hear those noises. But one of the things that happens is that my brain has difficulty separating some of those environmental sounds and separating that from spoken language. So that can be a little bit overwhelming for individuals that do have a cochlear implant. So you have to think about your students, if they're trying to listen to the teacher, they're also trying to filter out some of those background information and some of the other noise that's in their environment, that for hearing people who are who have grown up hearing all those noise noises, they learn how to filter it out. But it's a lot more difficult for our students and it can become exhausting throughout their school day. Or some students might use hearing aids with an FM system like I mentioned before. So basically that would be like a microphone that the teacher would wear during the class that would connect directly to the students hearing aid or cochlear implants. And wherever the teacher walks anywhere in the classroom, then the student would be able to hear what the teacher is saying. On the left side, you'll see a couple of different options for accessibility to language and different types of communication modes. As we've already talked about, there is signed ASL. You'll also see there where it says pigeon sign English. That is a little bit of a mixture between what we talked about earlier about signing exact English and ASL. It's also a combination of some made up signs as well as gestures. And that is something that some students might use, but it's not something that will be common to all. So if someone speaks spoken English, and maybe they're in an oral environment, they might use cute speech or lip reading or a variety of these methods. Typical requirements for a classroom setup prior to COVID were that there were a variety of accommodations that might be needed for a deaf and hard of hearing student. And the focus on that is more on the physical setup. So usually your teachers at the front of the classroom, in front of the whiteboard, the sign language interpreter would stand closely to the teacher. You also might have a captionist or a cart person, as well as an FM system. Usually for college programs, you will have a student who pays for someone to be a note taker for them, so that the deaf student is able to keep their eyes on the interpreter. Because oftentimes if they're looking at the interpreter and then looking down to write notes, they might miss information so they can focus on the interpreter the entire time. In the picture, this is from an actual university in Washington. And so a college level workshop, you can see the presenter there on the left in the front with the PowerPoint behind them. And then the interpreter who is signing being right there by the PowerPoint. And you'll see the student, you'll see the bald man who is deaf and blind. And then you'll note it or he might be the interpreter. And then there's a person there who is able to provide tactile interpretation who can hear as well and be there to provide that tactile information in sign language to the deaf and blind students to be able to give them communication access. The same concept is for a sign language teacher, they can see the sign, but it's through touch. And then you'll see right there in the red outline the laptop for the carts, where they're able to see the captions, and or note taker, which can be shared with that deaf blind individual. Alright, now, finally, we are at the computer science portion of the presentation. So computer science is a hot topic now for schools and in the classroom. And it's not a new field to the world. It's been recognized since it's been recognized for a very long time. Front since the 1800s. The woman who first came up with computer code was Ada Lovelace. So it's been around for some time, but more recently, schools have realized how important it is for kids to be able to use technology to understand how to use computers well in the professional setting and also to be able to use technology safely. And so this is the opportunity where we've kind of backpedaled to give them the training that they need. Now, when we talk about the language in English for computer science, it's still evolving. The the language itself is developing the different tags that are being picked up. All of that is relatively new in English. And likewise in ASL. However, in ASL, the standardized signs are not as readily available as they might be in English, because there are fewer people. So it's evolving, but evolving more slowly than the computer science language is in English, because it's not as commonly used. And not as many people are as familiar. So there are often not standardized signs for computer science terminology. So you might see signs like, for example, the word algorithm. One person might sign it this way. And then another person might sign it like this more like a rule. Just showing the concept of it. And you'll see that those two signs don't look similar. But they're still related. And so that's what's really happening across the board now in ASL. Where the language is still evolving. And those that are in the field are developing those signs. Keep in mind that interpreters and captions are not perfect. It's affected by their level of understanding as well as how well they are able to match up with the teacher's language. And you'll see things on YouTube, for example, when you're watching, if you look at the automatic captions, they're just awful. And so it often depends on the technology. And someone who's speaking in English, and then the captions do not match up, especially when you're talking about terminology, it's very difficult to follow. Generally, speaking, I teach middle school, one high school, computer science. And my very first approach with students is just to show them how to make mistakes. I will on purpose make mistakes and put them up for the students to see. And I will mess up something just to show them and to help to show them how to respond appropriately. And then I I want them to see that it doesn't have to be upsetting where you need to throw an iPad because you made a mistake. But mistakes are okay, you just take it the opportunity to look into it and find out how to fix it. Other times students will ask me questions and I may know the answer. But sometimes I don't. A lot of times I don't know the answer. And so I tell them that I want them to see that it's okay to make mistakes. I want them to know that it's okay to ask for help and to find out ways to fix it. I never touch their code. I never use their device. I let them know that it's okay to make mistakes because when they make mistakes, they're able to learn. And I walk them through how to find a solution. But I would never give them the answer because I think that that's a skill that's important for them as they develop and they go along their own journeys to figure out how to find the answers and how to make mistakes and to learn from them. To teach them how to develop the skills to be able to improve and to analyze and to learn and to develop time management skills. I know in the past I've made mistakes. And then it takes three hours to go back and to fix one semi colon. But then I know that the next time I come across that I won't make that same mistake. Going back to the example of YouTube or the website W3 for schools. Looking at those different types of resources and the tags, there will help them. If I don't know the answer, I teach them how to find the answer on YouTube or W3. How to search for the information that they need to help themselves. Using key words. Using the internets. I think that that's a really good way to help them to learn how to find the information. I can't emphasize enough how important it is to present them with small challenges. Not to just jump right into a three week long project. But to make baby steps and start with those smaller projects or divide bigger projects up into smaller segments. That way they can catch those mistakes earlier and fix those mistakes piece by piece. And then when they take each segment, they're going to end up with a better end product and it's going to decrease their frustration and give them some pride in their work. Peer or pair projects where two kids work together. Where you have one person that is the driver. And then you have they are the only one who's actually touching the computer. Actually inputting the code working in the program. And then the other person that is part of that pair is the navigator. They give them directions only. They don't actually touch the computer. Now with deaf kids having them pair by having a deaf kid and a hearing kid that can present challenges as far as communication. And how they can learn to work together. You might see them looking at each other making faces not knowing how to do it. That gives them an opportunity to either work it out. It lets one person actually open up the program and look at the code. And then the other person might be able to open up a Word document on another computer or their notepad and to actually type in English what those instructions are. Then the driver can look over and see what the navigator is typing out. You can give them 15 to 20 minutes and then have them switch roles. Or you can open up separate tabs on the computer and then they can swap over so that they switch roles. The other one gets to become the driver and the other than navigator. That way they get that opportunity to learn communication skills and learn how to help their partner to understand better. And it also helps them with their coding at the same time. One of the skills that they learn by doing that is learning how to work with somebody who is different than themselves. Which is an important life skill. So if you have a hearing student and a deaf student working together, that gives them the opportunity to see the potential of the other students. The deaf student might be brilliant and it gives that hearing student the opportunity to see and to learn from that. Now when you have a kid that says, I want to work with a deaf kid, I want to work with a deaf kid, I wouldn't choose that student. I would choose someone else who would be able to get that opportunity to, I don't want someone to say, this is my deaf friend and be seeking attention. So I suggest pairing a deaf student maybe with another more quiet student in your class or another student who maybe has some little meltdowns or someone who is not as motivated academically. It gives them an opportunity to learn from one another. I like to use two specific programs for teaching computer science in particular. The first one is called code.org and it's a free program. It's a free website for teachers where you can register, you can set up an account and you can register your students in your classroom where they're able to work through that site at advancing levels. And one of the things that I like about that is that code.org very strongly believes in meeting kids where they are. Even if you have a high school student that can create an entire website from scratch or if you have a student who has never had any experience with computer science. Code.org believes that any child can do coding. And so they meet the child where they are at their current level. In my first teaching experience at a high school level, those students had never taken a computer science class before. They had not done any coding at all in the past. They came in completely fresh. They use technology every day. I mean, our kids are obsessed with technology, obsessed with their iPads and their iPhones and their Facebook and their Instagram. And they use the technology but they've never created any of those programs. So this was the opportunity to be able to teach them how to use it appropriately, to use it safely and to develop the skills that they needed to not have to rely on their teachers. So code.org was really nice because it met them at their level. They start out with computer science principles. And that was really quite advanced for a high school level. It didn't match the students that I was working with. And so I bumped it down to a middle school level for that particular class. And the students didn't know that. Nothing on their computer screen said this is sixth grade material. So they were, they didn't know they were just picking up coding. They were using HTML. They were working on their website, none the wiser. And so when they were ready to advance to the high school level, then I opened up that next level for them. For middle school, for those that are not ready for the middle school level, there's also an elementary level. So I started that group out at fourth or fifth grade. And then when you see that that's a little bit easy, or it was a little bit easy, but one of the nice things was that it helped them to learn the terminology and then to set them up for the next level. So if you have deaf and hard of hearing students or really any students who are falling behind in reading, code.org is a really nice program because they don't need to be able to have a high reading level. Most of the information is in videos and it is captioned with kid friendly captions. It's not using large words, huge vocabulary, it's using everyday language and helping them to understand what it means. It's very visual and it shows how each of those pieces of code fit together and how they run. It shows it in yellow when it's running. So they're able to see where it is and reading the code. So it's very visual. And then they're also able to see it's much easier for them to find their mistakes. The other program that I like to use is a little bit more open ended and it's from MIT and it's called scratch.mit.edu. And this one helps them to use basic code but with less guidance, less step-by-step instruction. So it allows them to be more creative in making their own projects, which is nice for some for those who are motivated and who are willing to explore and to play around and to make mistakes. Some kids though are not very comfortable with that type of approach and they prefer to use code.org because they feel like it's too much information and they don't know quite what to do with it, whereas the code.org is more step-by-step, more guided instruction. And when you finish a particular level, you move on to the next level. Just one thought I wanted to share. When looking at the MIT program or scratch.mit, it is accessible for, it will be more accessible for deaf and hard of hearing students. I have a contract with them, with their team, where they are in the process of filming me give the instructions in ASL so that a student will be able to click on certain content and then it will pull up a video of me signing it. I'm not sure when that will be released, but it's a work in progress and it will be coming soon. Sometime, at least before I retire. I don't know when though. So sometime within the next 40 years. So this is a very fun memory. When I taught my first class here at Indiana School for the Deaf, I was teaching a high school level class, but with that particular group of students, they did not have any or very little content level understanding. And so, like I said, I opened up the class at a middle school level on code.org and they were able to pick that up and by the end of the semester, so halfway through that school year, they were ready to go ahead and that group of students went to the governor's office and shared the project that they were able to make. So that was a really cool experience that I was able to do that. So I haven't failed yet. Another class that I had was a middle school group of students who were at grade level for reading and writing and math and didn't have any issues at all. So that was a pretty easy class to work through on coding.org. They made great progress. We had a lot of fun. They were able to create a lot of their own projects. And I have to say though that one of my best classes ever was actually a light at the middle school level. Now this group of kids, some of them aren't even able to walk to the cafeteria on their own. Some are not able to go to the restroom on their own. This is a group of students that will not be going to college. They're working on independent living skills. And some of them will probably go on to live in group homes or continue to live with their parents. So this was the educational level of the students that I was working with. And so I was asked to teach a computer science class to this group of students and I asked about my administrator said okay well I guess it can't hurt. So I said why not? I felt like they would be able to benefit. It's still good experience for them. They can learn problem solving. They can learn how to identify mistakes, to identify shapes, to learn patience, to learn how to respond to frustration better, to not totally lose it if they make a mistake or become frustrated. So when I asked to do this, my administrators went ahead and approved it. And I was amazed that they could do everything. The terminology wasn't as important. They were able to still understand the concepts though because they were able to do it hands-on. They actually had the skills to watch the videos and to do it on their own. One of the students was deaf and blind and in a wheelchair and she did much better than I expected. She actually did much better than her aid or her parents expected. And she was able to use different tools or toys from preschool with lights to look at the programming for those toys and to navigate based on feeling, based on the limited vision that she did have. And she did much better than anyone expected her to. Interestingly, her behavior improved. Her frustration at school improved. She didn't cry or scream or anything. She did so much better. I think it was because she had some pride in herself and the work she was doing. Now with computer science, if you're just beginning to teach or if it's a new program that's being adopted into your school's curriculum, it can be a huge undertaking. There can be a large gap between the levels of students. You're going to have students who come in with no technology at home. You might have someone from a poorer family or maybe it doesn't match with their religious beliefs or they have limited accessibility because of where they live. So for various reasons, you might have students that have little technology and then you might have other students that spend their summer coding. So being able to meet your students where they are, you might have a huge gap in the access that your students have and so it's really important to meet them where they are and for those students that are a bit behind help them to catch up with the students that are further ahead. So that means that you may need to make individual assignments more enrichment type projects for your students that are more advanced and then helping your students that are further behind so that they can catch up. I can't emphasize enough how important it is for us to not assume that just because our students use technology that they understand what it means and how to use it appropriately and safely. Especially when we think about deaf and hard of hearing students and special needs students. So many parents of children with special needs if they are out in the community at a restaurant or a grocery store you'll see them give their phone or their iPad to the child as a babysitter just to keep them quiet while they're out in public. And so the kids know how to use it but they might not always know how to use it appropriately. Sometimes you will see information that's not age appropriate even if you're looking at Facebook or Instagram. So digital citizenship is an important skill that we need to be able to teach our students and learning how to use the internet safely and also to be able to block inappropriate material for them. Our kids now in middle school and high school they're pretty much on line 24-7. Especially now everyone's using Zoom. They take they turn it off after class and then they grab their phone and they're texting somebody and then they put that down and then they're watching YouTube videos while they're laying in bed. And there's something going day and night for most of our students. Sometimes they're not always using it appropriately. Also it's important to know that anything that they post on the internet stays there forever. It's a digital footprint so we want to help them to understand that even if you delete it and someone can't see it, it doesn't mean that no one can see it. It might come up later when you apply for a job or when and you could even lose your job or some inappropriate material that was posted several years ago. You hear it all the time about a CEO that gets fired because of a comment that was discriminatory that they posted 10 or 15 years ago or an inappropriate picture. And then they lose everything that they've worked for all of their accomplishments. They lose their income and everything from a single post that they may have made when they were young and dumb. So keeping in mind that we need to teach our kids that these CEOs are losing their jobs for something they posted when they were 20. So it's really important for us to stress to our students that are in their teens about how important it is to be careful about what they are posting and how to use the internet safely and to make sure that they have good results for the future. So now I like to show this. I call it the state of the states. So at our current level. So Beth, just a moment. I put the link in the chat and so people can open that up if they like and I think we're not going to go off and do the activity on the next slide but just go ahead and do your demonstration on this website. Okay great. So I'll show you my state but if you're curious you can take a look at this website to see how your state is doing from the link that Richard typed into the chat and you could probably google it too. It's not hard to find. It's code.org backslash promote slash in. So it will show you what each state is doing for computer science standards as well as requirements in education. What's offered as far as computer science in each state and what percentage of students are using computer science as part of their IEP or their individualized education plan. On the top you'll see in general computer science education statistics and then as you scroll down you'll see a map and then you can choose whichever states. So I chose Indiana because that's where I'm from. So you can see that there are over 4,000 open jobs in the computer science field. That's a lot of jobs for today's economy. It shows their starting salary as well and 77,000 and then it also shows that 72 percent of public high schools offer computer science classes. Now this doesn't tell us how many students are taking them but it does show us that 72 percent offer and then the next number it shows graduates in computer science 2,347. So that's about half of the available jobs. So we see that there are 4,000 some vacancies and only 2,000 graduating in those particular fields. So we see an opportunity to be able to invest in our students and our teachers to be able to provide that training. We do require computer science for all of our high school students. Not all of them take it but we do offer it. And then the K through 12 standards you can click on this and it will show you the standards for the state for each of those grade levels and then the AP stats. You can see in some states that it's incredible like New York for example 20,000 available computing jobs and only 6,000 graduates and only 48 percent of the schools teaching it. Those aren't good statistics or for example Alaska. They're doing pretty well. Washington state not bad. So as you can see some states do better than others. So if you're curious about your own home state or whatever your favorite college football team is if you want to check out what the stats are in their state you can take a look. So it's really important to take a look at the situation as a whole to look at all of your students. Not providing these computer science classes just for your college bound class classes and for those that are looking for additional electives to fill out their schedule but all of your students can take computer science classes regardless of their needs regardless of their language or their disability they can all do it. We'll skip the activity. I just want to emphasize how you can help your deaf and hard of hearing students. Be sure to read their IEP. As their teacher it's really important to request access so that you know what their individual needs are what their accommodations are so that you can meet those educational needs and to help them to improve and learn their best. Include them. Inclusion is so important. One thing that I've noticed in public school settings is let's say we have a deaf student in a math class and in social studies and English. They get pulled out for elective classes or for example foreign language they get pulled out for computer science. If you see that happening in your school please step in. Make sure you're providing the support that those students need. Another thing that you can do is if you have a presentation Google Slides will provide auto captions so if you turn your mic on on the computer it will turn captions and they're not too bad. They're not perfect. If you get too far away it won't pick up correctly or if you have an accent it might not always pick it up but it is helpful. If you do have interpreters in your classroom please provide them with prep materials in advance give them a heads up. If you can give them two or three days ahead of time let them know what the topic is what you'll be discussing or what the activities will be. Any important terminology that way they can make sure to be prepared to have appropriate signs because there's nothing worse than being a deaf student and watching an interpreter try to figure out the concepts on the fly or having them to spell out every single word because they're not familiar with the material. If an interpreter just gets the information right then and there in the lesson it's going to be very difficult to be able to process that information. Also another thing that is helpful if you're writing on the board please do not talk and write at the same time because it makes it difficult for the students to catch all of the information and it's not just for the deaf and hard of hearing students it's really beneficial to all of your students and also if you think about it while you have your back to the class they can be talking to one another or texting so it's beneficial to you too. If you think about when you turn around and look at the board and you're writing notes the hearing students are able to look away and still have access however the deaf students are not and you want to make sure that you're providing equal access to all of your students. Right a switch. So your deaf students need visual supports visual representations in English one word can have a whole host of different signs that can be used and likewise in ASL a sign can go to a variety of English words so it's important to provide visuals to help the students connect that word with the word that should be used and it helps the interpreter choose the correct sign as well. It's helpful to use anchor charts such as those that I have posted behind me. That's beneficial to all students. They can get the information on the presentation. They can look down at their notes. They can look back up and still refer and stay right on track with the information. Of course once the pandemic has ended we'll be able to go back to having circular or U shaped seating. That's the best scenario for deaf students so that they can have a visual sight line on all of the students. It allows them to follow who the speaker is. Captioning should be provided on all videos. That's extremely helpful. If you take advantage of teacher paid teacher videos those are not captioned then they are not useful. It is not fair to expect an interpreter to interpret all the information that's provided in a video. It's just not best practice so you want to find accessible materials. Most importantly all deaf students need time. Kids that can hear have the opportunity to look down, continue to listen while looking at their paper or referring to something else. Look at A, click on B, referring to their computer and listening at the same time. A deaf student can not look at their computer and listen to instruction at the same time because they need that visual sight line. Give the example, take a pause, let the students follow that step, then give another example, take a pause, let the students follow the next step and continue in that manner. That allows you as the teacher to catch their mistakes as well. Often when we just plow ahead even the other students will make mistakes and they're glad if you keep plowing forward because you won't see that. But those pauses allow time to catch those mistakes as well. As we wrap up, Richard. Yeah, thank you, Beth. That was fantastic. And there's so many things to learn about dealing with deaf kids, especially in the mainstream when they're isolated. If people have questions, can you just put them into the chat and Brianna is sort of monitoring that. One thing that Beth was talking about earlier was looking at your state and how your state is doing in terms of computer science. And so I put in, there's an organization here called the code.org advocacy coalition and access CS for all is part of that coalition. And so that's a good place to sort of monitor and see how not just your state is doing but how the nation is doing. And if you really want to get engaged, you can find out who in your state is part of this advocacy coalition. So Beth, so people are starting to put comments in. So one thing that, we had a workshop last two summers ago. I keep forgetting about the pandemic two summers ago with teachers of deaf and hard of hearing and you were part of that actually. And one thing I, when we wrote a paper about that afterwards, we learned that there are people that kind of make a similarity or compare or see the similarities between English language learners and deaf students. So I wonder if you have some comments on comparing those two groups? What are the similarities and perhaps what are the differences? Well, they are similar in that they're both beginning. If you have a deaf student that's new to coding and a new English student, I would say they are similar enough. However, the difference between ESL students is that they will oftentimes catch up. And a deaf student is never going to become hearing and never learn English perfectly. So it's not a perfect comparison. However, they are learning English as their second language. So it, English is for an ESL student, their second, third or fourth language potentially. And they can acquire that. But a deaf student may never be completely fluent in English. Right. Yeah, that's sort of what we read as well in the literature that we read about that. The comparison is somewhat of the same, but there are these big differences. So go ahead, Brianna. There's a question in the chat about if you have an experience with Project Lead the Way. Project Lead the Way. Oh, personally, our school is not big enough to be able to afford Project Lead the Way. It's about $6,000 to per startup. But I do know they do good work. And it's definitely worth it if your school is already involved in their program from other classes. You definitely should check it out. As for accessible materials through that, they are trying. Let's just get that way. They don't have a deaf person on staff. And they do not have an accessibility director. So they don't currently have modifications for a lot of their materials. So if any of you have deaf students who are working on grade level, I think it's a good fit for those materials. But if you have students who are working below grade level or have delays, you may, you will have to modify everything yourself. So Beth, one thing I've learned sort of in the last few years is that most special ed programs that I'm aware of in the nation really don't seem to teach much about teaching deaf kids. So where do, you know, special ed doesn't do much. Where did you learn and how did, where do other teachers like yourself learn to teach deaf kids that wasn't special ed programs? Well, again, you do have to recall that each kid is different and you do have to accommodate for their needs. What helps initially is to when you meet the deaf person or just to meet deaf people in general get involved in deaf events, deaf community events, interact with the community, take an ASL class. Those are some little things that will help. Deaf adults are kids that grew up in these programs and so they have these experiences. I grew up hearing and became deafened later in life. So I was interested in becoming a teacher, but long before I was deafed once I became deaf I did go to Rochester Institute of Technology, RIT and I took a deaf education master's program there. And there are a few of those programs out there that specialize in deaf education, but special ed is taught in all schools and it may include a piece of deaf education, but having that true deaf education approach includes the language and the culture, which is quite a bit different. Right. Yeah, so there are these special ed programs that specialize in deaf education. I know there's one in Oregon, Washington State does not have one, so they're not in every state. One positive aspect of COVID is that these deaf education programs are offering things online now. Yeah, great. Can someone who is teaching, what would be some resources? A mainstream teacher has one deaf kid in their class. Are there some places where they could get resources, where they could understand best how to serve that kid, along with all the other kids as well? Well, they can obviously start with Google to do a search and a whole host of things will come up filtering through teacher, teachers pay teachers, you can click on special needs. There are Facebook groups and Instagram groups out there searching through the hashtag deaf education. You'll find a whole host of resources there, pictures, stories, YouTube videos. There are fantastic resources out there. And then also looking at the local deaf club or ASL classes, they usually will have access to some resources and some tips on places to find information. And I know they are often happy to help because if you remember, deaf adults have experienced this as children. And oftentimes have been traumatized or have a lot of bad memories of how their educational experience went. So they're more than glad to help and provide resources that will help other deaf children in their education. Yeah, so that's a great idea is to involve deaf adults, learn from deaf adults because they've had the experience of children and they know what might work better. So getting connected with a deaf adult has gone always easy. I see somebody dropped in the chat a link to ASL core as a helpful resource for CS signs. Are there any other resources that you recommend folks check out to learn signs that are used in computer science? ASL core is actually one of the best. There's that one. And then RIT slash NTID, which is National Technical Institute for the Deaf, is one of their colleges. And they do have a STEM dictionary as well. And you can look their website for different signs related to computer science and sciences in general. Again, however, these signs are oftentimes new. They're not standardized yet. So they don't always fit the concept. It may be that they were, it's a particular sign that was created by one student who took a particular class, but it's absolutely a good place to start. I put in the chat the ASL STEM form, which actually I helped develop a few years ago. And this one includes a lot of signs, I would say at the more higher level. If you look at the RIT site or some of the other sites, they're more, I'd say, at the elementary level. And this one is, actual users of sign language have contributed to the ASL STEM form. Well, great. We're just about at our time, Richard. Yeah, I noticed that. So why don't we say, thank you, Beth, so much. And hopefully, everybody gained something from your presentation. Thank you again. Sure. Absolutely. Thank you for attending. Yeah. So a lot of chat. Thank yous there.