Accessible Open Educational Resources for Students with Disabilities in Greece: They are Open to the Deaf Accessible Open Educational Resources for Students with Disabilities in Greece: They are Open to the Deaf Vassilis Kourbetis and Konstantinos Boukouras Institute of Educational Policy, Athens, Greece

Introduction  Open Educational Resources (OER) Material that is in the public domain or uses an open license. Anyone can legally and freely copy, use, adapt and re-share them Appeared as textbooks to curricula, syllabi, lecture notes, assignments, tests, projects, audio, video and animation  Goal of the project “Design and Development of Accessible Educational & Instructional Material for Students with Disabilities” Development of OER in order to efficiently increase access to lectures, textbooks, video, etc. for students in both special and general education. In this presentation focus has been mainly placed on the development of accessible educational and instructional material for deaf students.

Major elementary school needs of Deaf students Collection of Educational Resources Bilingual Hybrid books Online videos with interactive text navigation Introduction The project follows the principles and strategies of differentiation support, part of the principles of Universal Design for Learning (UDL). The development is done through peer-based learning, collaboration and individual creativity using rapidly changing information and communication technologies (ICT)

Collection of Educational Resources The resources comprises of 23 distinct support materials, 12 of these educational materials were developed for the learning of Greek Sign Language (GSL) and 9 for bilingual (Greek - GSL) education. They cover mainly elementary school needs but also include high school needs The first DVD-ROM created in Greece was the bilingual (GSL - Greek) dictionary of Greek Sign Language, containing more than signs and also lexicographic and linguistic information about GSL All materials are available in a multimedia format in CD-ROM that can be used by individuals or groups for learning and instructional purposes. The content is presented in sign language by native signers, professional interpreters or the collaboration of both All educational materials are available for reproduction, or use

Collection of Educational Resources Five titles have been developed in GSL and three of them have also been interpreted into spoken Greek Some of the materials are trilingual (with written English as the third language) The materials cover different content vocabulary; namely, specialized terminology (math & science) and vocabulary about nature (e.g. Biology), ICT and political content.  Main purpose of making the collection available as an OER For the teaching and learning of GSL as a first language, using GSL to learn Greek as a second language and using GSL to teach academic content.

Collection of Educational Resources

Hybrid Books “Hybrid Book” was used as a model for the creation of study materials aimed at users with different disabilities; that is, visual, hearing, motor, mental and others The initial focus group consists of students with disabilities attending the first two grades of primary school. The format that has been developed follows the original text format of the national curriculum books. Electronic Form: Single copy or web application, combines the presentation of the original printed book in a video using GSL, the meaning in subtitles overlaying the screen presentation of the GSL video. During the process of translating Greek texts to GSL, first, the text is divided into smaller sections, so that it can be easily memorized and explained in front of the camera. Second, the GSL interpret- er will translate the text into GSL. Finally, the native signer and the interpreter will watch the signed text twice or three times and compare the signed text with the Greek text. The data in multimedia PDF, video and audio files are available as independent files for multiple uses

Hybrid Books A bilingual science hybrid book Major attention has been paid to the relationship between written and sign language text The signed text is in accordance with the Greek text at a word The quality of the text in GSL is the most important aspect of accessibility therefore during the conversion of textbooks in accessible educational materials, signed text is crucial

Online Videos with Text Navigation Goal: A free interactive online tool that offers the deaf students the ability to view subtitled video and the choice to select parts of interest by clicking on the subtitles, move backwards and forwards within the video and search for signed quotes within the video. Criteria: Licensed as open source, quick and easy to navigate, easily adapted to the needs of deaf students and able to use the content of the educational material in Greek Sign Language (GSL) with the interactive subtitles. Flexible customization and database search and support of the uploaded material are also necessary.

Online Videos with Text Navigation An open source media archive platform with numerous capabilities based on OxJS JavaScript library OS: Ubuntu LTS 64 bit Web Platform: NGINX pan.do/ra release: r4246 Accepts.webm, mp4 videos System setup Allows management of large decentralized collections of video, creation of metadata and of time-based annotations collaboratively and serving an archive as a desktop-class web application.

Online Videos with Text Navigation Login screen of version developed at I.E.P. Users can search for specific videos or browse the library Video Library

Online Videos with Text Navigation Video auto plays Video navigation by clicking on subtitles

Online Videos with Text Navigation Quality and subtitle settings, video download Video play, scene replay, volume and scale Timeline Search video library

Online Videos with Text Navigation Search subtitles content. The text matching the search criteria is highlighted

Online Videos with Text Navigation View Options

Online Videos with Text Navigation The platform can serve also as a repository for.gif,.jpg,.png and.pdf files

Online Videos with Text Navigation Player View Modes

Online Videos with Text Navigation Editor Mode Clip Alignment Subtitles Editing Video Clip Alignment

Online Videos with Text Navigation Clips View Search within clips of video

Online Videos with Text Navigation Search for subtitles content within video clips Only the video clips with subtitles matching the text are shown

Online Videos with Text Navigation Search for subtitles content within the whole video library All clips from all videos matching the word are shown The platform will soon be available at:

Conclusions  Advanced search and comparison of GSL patterns and expressions within videos  Additional material (.pdf,.jpg,.png,.png) can be uploaded  Easily populated, enriched and expanded with GSL material, so all deaf students can have a complete database of words and expressions, both in video and written text, at their disposal in order to better understand and learn GSL.  Open Source, code can be freely altered to serve further specific needs  Localized repository, easily transportable.  No limits to bandwidth, video quality, depends only from site/server hosted.  Can be installed on remote locations with limited or no internet connection and run on local basis.

Conclusions  Deaf students gain access to knowledge and information and sign language learning is promoted, increasing their involvement and supporting their ability to understand and process the incoming information.  The viability and functionality of the educational material developed within the project is ensured  The specifications and data evaluation methodology can be used in the design and implementation of other similar ventures in the adaptation of textbooks for all subjects in all grades of compulsory education.  The development of accessible material contributes to increasing the participation of students in inclusive education and moreover, improving the quality of education provided.

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