Improving deaf education.

Sometimes, the things we take for granted are hurdles for handicapped children to overcome. For instance, children with hearing problems can have a tough time learning how to take turns in conversations or how to make eye contact.

The way Vivian Smith, an elementary school teacher at the Mississippi School for the Deaf, overcomes this problem is videoconferencing. Smith uses cameras to connect with high school students on the other end of campus. The high school class shows her students the correct way to keep and maintain eye contact or appropriately take turns during conversation. Then her students play the role of famous deaf people while the high schoolers guess who they are.

"My students' behavior and ability to pay attention is enhanced," says Smith.

This is just one way administrators and instructors who teach hearing handicapped students are leveraging the latest visual and communications technology to address school safety, share best practices and bring the curriculum to life.

"Since our daily lives are more involved with technology, it only makes sense that it be brought into the classroom," adds Nancy Benham, director of the Association of College Educators-Deaf/Hard of Hearing.

Benham's group has created a virtual professional development school for sharing, through videoconferences, best practices for teaching the deaf and hard of hearing. Using Polycom's video communication system, Harold Johnson, director of Deaf Education Teacher Preparation at Kent State University, and co-director of the project, has already collaborated with Smith. KSU students can observe the elementary teacher doing the things they read about in their textbook as well as learn instructional strategies incorporating new technologies.

"If we continue to do the same old thing, we continue to get the same results," says Smith. "We must continue to update and improve our skills as teachers so we can pass necessary skills to our students so they become productive citizens."

Administrators at the Delaware School for the Deaf are using the Polycom system to make communication almost as instantaneous as a PA announcement. They installed a system in each classroom. In an emergency, the principal flashes all of the lights in the school. A certain number of flashes alert students and teachers to go to their videoconferencing systems for sign language announcements.