“Seeing English”: Creating Equitable and Interactive Learning Opportunities for Deaf Students Through Online Classroom Chat

• In Event: Technology Learning for All: Equity, Access, and Diversity Research

Abstract

Computer-mediated communication, as a low-cost, easily implemented instructional tool, can serve as a technological affordance to provide greater equity in educational environments for deaf students through direct access to communication. This qualitative study explored deaf college students’ perceptions of the efficacy of online chat in their classrooms, with particular attention to key factors that influenced those perceptions. These students saw chats that were more interactive as beneficial, and the type of task influenced the level of interactivity. These deaf students mentioned chatting online as a way for them to “see English,” suggesting by their words that seeing was accompanied by an increased active engagement with English as a living, dynamic mode of communication.

Author

• Carrie Lou Garberoglio, The University of Texas