Technology is empowering student education at every stage of their journey. It is giving them the ownership for when, where, and how they learn and make education an inseparable part of their lives. Going beyond the classroom walls, technology-inspired education is already transforming students into problem-solvers and creative thinkers.
On the top of it, technology has enabled the educators to create engaging and digitally advanced learning environments for students. These environments are value-packed with personalized learning models, including informative sessions, assessments, and gamification of content.
The last decade in particular, has seen technology revolutionize the imparting of education to differently-challenged students, too. This segment of society had for long been deprived of equal education opportunities.
Technology advancements have helped extend more than a helping hand to address the needs of such students making them less disabled and more enabled in a dignified manner. The pandemic opened up new vistas of accelerating solutions for differently abled children.
Online learning opened interesting opportunities across the world of academics, giving them access to a range of courses, preferred choices, they could invest in in accordance with their skills. Vaani, an NGO that caters to the education needs of deaf students took recourse to technology and we were only too happy to extend our fullest support in the larger interests of such children.
Vaani’s website
Our first association with Vaani took shape in the development of a website for them. The website showcases their vision, their meaningful programs and invaluable articles on the need for seamless communication between such children within their families and teachers at large.
We created a CMS (content management system) integrated website for Vaani so they can create, edit, and publish content as and when required. They described all their educational programs and initiatives under different sections of the website using the CMS. Every time they have a new update for their supporters, they could post it easily on their website.
Donations & Support
The team behind Vaani works selflessly and their noble efforts demand support of society. The Website has the feature of inviting donations without making it an imposition.
An online payment gateway is a critical component of any non-profit website for people to extend their support in terms of monetary assistance. With an integrated payment processor, An integrated payment processor enables Vaani to accept payments for donations directly from their website.
Moreover, all the data related to your donors, invoices, receipts, discounts, etc. remains in one place. You can easily share payment receipts with your donors, send payment reminders, apply for a discounted payment processing rate, and most importantly, connect with donors across the globe.
Centralized Information database
One of the key features incorporated in Vaani’s website is the Centralized Information database which helps in garnering numerous and valuable educational strategies, techniques and tools to empower the ‘hearing-impaired’ community. These details help impart to these individuals, the requisite skills and develop positive attitudes to lead dignified lives.
There are numerous informative sources which parents can download in at least five languages and learn to better interact with their challenged kids. Teachers and educators can download materials which can be utilized in classrooms, making their virtual meetings with the students more creative, friendly, easy to understand and interactive.
Technology as a visualizer tool
The pandemic disrupted academic lives and impacted this space very seriously. This gave rise to many opportunities and what mushroomed was online academic classes, coaching classes, focussed webinars and even international institutes offering certificate and diploma courses at nominal fees. Students who were keen to utilize each day that they had been deprived of, due to the pandemic, embraced the marvels of the digital world.
Vaani came up with the concept of “Voice to Visualization” an interesting combination of voice, visual and characteristics created in five languages i.e. English, Hindi, Bengali, Assam and Kannada. It involves speech recognition and visual display to complement the spoken word and the features of the subject/object involved.
We embraced the idea and developed an easy-to-use “Voice to Visualization” tool, incorporating all the features Vaani suggested. It simply captures a voice and converts it into three visuals for the children – image, sign video, and text.
The Visualizer Tool process
1.The teacher/guardian selects a language from the tool.
2. Then, they select a chapter which is a collection of images, videos, and text for every category (animals, plants, family relationships, etc.)
3. The teacher/guardian utters a word in the mic.
4. The tool identifies the voice and throws up the exact image linked to the word.
5. In the second pop-up, a video shows the Indian sign language for the particular word.
6. The third visual displays the textual form of the word.
Easy to operate for the teacher/parent/guardian, hearing-impaired child is also able to connect the dots and grasp the concept immediately. The smooth integration of the images helps weave a story effectively and facilitates speedier understanding and learning by these children.
Every new smile we encounter at Vaani encourages us to work along with them to develop more distinct technologies for their children to benefit and live their lives happily.
Assistive technology like the Visualization Tool improves the overall capabilities of children with special needs. Once they find themselves progressing, their confidence increases and the eagerness to excel takes precedence.
This also protects such students from the range of behaviours in classrooms, helps them to focus and allows them to hone their hand and eye coordination skills in a friendly and safe environment.
This helps Vaani to create an opportunity to establish an Individual Learning Environment to influence the learning process in a positive manner, increase the self-confidence of these children and prepare them for a good life ahead.