Classroom Access Project
Media Access Australia has developed an Education Strategy with programs progressing from raising awareness of using captions in schools, to a series of pilots testing access to audiovisual material in schools, called the Classroom Access Project.
For students who are Deaf or have hearing impairment to be fully included in a mainstream classroom it is necessary that they can access the curriculum in all its forms.
The project was designed with Universal Design for Learning principles in mind, the goal being to provide captioned access to audiovisual resources for all students, including those with a hearing impairment.
The projects sought to demonstrate best practice in relation to the accessibility of material for students with hearing impairment. This was initially explored by establishing a classroom equipped with assistive technology, known as a Model Classroom, at La Salle Catholic College, Bankstown in Term 1 2010. Here, the Model Classroom demonstrated that access to audiovisual content can be affordable and practical in mainstream classrooms.
The Model Classroom made use of a combination of technologies which increase access through providing captions, extra visual clues and enhancing the quality of sounds, such as the teacher’s voice, for all learners.
The technology used in the Model Classroom included:
- Interactive Whiteboard
- Short shot projector
- Laptop
- Soundfield amplification systems
- FM technology
- Cli-iLoop
- Clickview
Motivated by the success of the first Model Classroom, a second Classroom Access Project was conducted at Cerdon College, Merrylands NSW over Terms 3 & 4, 2010. During this second project in the series, various refinements were made and new ideas were explored.
The Classroom Access Project was in partnership with the Federal Government’s Captioning Grant and Media Access Australia’s Accessible Education Database (AED). As curriculum support materials are captioned through the Captioning Grant, these resources are entered into the AED, ensuring that all educators may easily find suitable material for their accessible classroom. All teachers are encouraged to interact with the AED by entering additional titles.
Future directions
Both projects in the series demonstrated the value of the Model Classroom concept in which students with hearing impairment are afforded equitable access to audiovisual curriculum content.
Media Access Australia will continue to embark on projects which explore and promote access for students.
