We require a number of projects ranging from rather technical backend systems to co-designed user-interfaces for the ongoing work we are doing with our partners the Deaf Community of Cape Town (DCCT) (www.dcct.org.za).
Brief Background
We write Deaf with a capital ‘D’ to distinguish deaf or hard of hearing in that Deaf people use a signed language to communicate, thereby defining their culture much like other groups who use textual languages like English. In South Africa we use South African Sign Language (SASL). Many Deaf people have limited literacy in spoken and written languages.
Bridging communication between Deaf and hearing people is an ongoing research area for us in an overall project that we have called SignSupport. When you take up one of these projects you will be joining a group of researchers and students form UCT and UWC computer science departments. In these projects you will be assisted by Ms Meryl Glaser who is our co-researcher.
We have already developed a system to train Deaf learners in computer literacy using mobile devices. This approach has a number of advantages but we now wish to integrate the training system with the PCs that the Deaf learners use for their training, thus the Signs project. In addition there are two projects to assist DCCT as an organization: Crafts and VideoUp. |