Under the auspices of the Social Development Partnerships Program and through the Canadian Government’s Office of Disability Issues, a team comprised of Saint Mary's University, Trent University, and IBM Research completed a one-year project focused on engaging National Disability Organizations (NDOs) in Liberated Learning activities.
The most important project outcome was the signing of Memorandums of Collaboration (MOC) with three leading organizations:
- The Learning Disabilities Association of Canada (LDAC)
- The Canadian Hard of Hearing Association (CHHA)
- The Canadian Hearing Society (CHS)
The project team worked closely with LDAC, CHHA, and CHS to better align Liberated Learning with the actual needs of the Canadian disability community. The project not only raised awareness of Liberated Learning in the disability community, but also identified knowledge and technology gaps through direct interaction and analysis. A number of intriguing “application storyboards” emerged, which described real life usage scenarios for advanced speech recognition.
Saint Mary's University, Trent University, and IBM Research are collaborating with leading National Disability Organizations - the Learning Disabilities Association of Canada, the Canadian Hard of Hearing Association and the Neil Squire Society -to research how emerging speech recognition technologies can increase information accessibility. ULL is funded through a contribution agreement with the Social Development Partnerships Program, Office of Disability Issues, Government of Canada and Saint Mary's University.
Building incrementally on a successful Phase I Development Venture, this project will implement three pilot tests of the Liberated Learning concept in educational, workplace, and virtual environments.
Education Pilot - This pilot is coordinated by the Learning Disabilities Association of Canada through their provincial office in Nova Scotia (LDANS) and implemented at Landmark East School in Wolfville, NS. Established in 1979, Landmark East is Canada’s international boarding and day school for students with learning disabilities. In one of Landmark East’s classrooms, students diagnosed with various learning disabilities will have access to SR generated multi-media transcripts to help them prepare for exams and complete assignments. Both the teacher and students alike will provide feedback on how the SR generated transcripts impacted preparation for exams and completion of assignments. The project team will analyse how the transcripts were used and how having this newfound access might enhance the learning process.
Workplace Pilot - Canadian Hard of Hearing Association is investigating how speech recognition can facilitate real time communication for employees who are hard of hearing. The pilot will seek to understand the inherent speaker-training requirements and how various levels of SR accuracy impacts the communication access needs of hard of hearing consumers. The analysis of these two components will take place in a traditional office setting including one on one conversations and group/meeting settings.
Virtual Access Pilot - This pilot focuses on enhancing the virtual learning environment of Neil Squire’s Distance Learning classroom, Wimba (http://www.wimba.com). The majority of these classes provide career and computer skills enhancement for people with a wide range of disabilities. During the pilot, course instructors will use the real time text generated by ViaScribe to Close Caption the class’s webcasts. In the second part of the pilot, the instructors will use the transcribed multimedia outputs to allow current students to review classroom presentations, allow students that are deaf or hard of hearing to review transcripts of class, and allow access for students that could not attend. Furthermore, Neil Squire will create a series of accessible lessons that can be accessed by past or future students as needed.
Our Community Partners
The Canadian Hard of Hearing Association (CHHA) was formed in 1982 to be the voice of hard of hearing and deafened Canadians. Statistics have shown that 10% of the Canadian population has some degree of hearing loss. CHHA was formed to give visibility to this invisible disability. Our main objective is to promote self-help among hard of hearing and deafened persons and encourage support for individual and collective action.
The Neil Squire Society is the only not-for-profit organization in Canada that for the past 20 years has used technology, knowledge and passion to empower Canadians with physical disabilities. Our work helps our clients remove obstacles and barriers so that they can live independent lives and become active members of our society.
The Learning Disabilities Association of Canada (LDAC) is a national, non-profit voluntary organization acting as the voice for persons with learning disabilities and those who support them. LDAC accomplishes its goals through public awareness about the nature and impact of learning disabilities, advocacy, research, health, education and collaborative efforts.
Founded in 1989, the Learning Disabilities Association of Nova Scotia (LDANS), a non-profit organization is dedicated to unlocking the potential of those with learning disabilities. The Association offer support, advocacy, and referral services to children, parents, professionals and others dealing with learning disabilities. Their mission is to advance the education, employment, social development, legal rights and general well being of people with learning disabilities.
