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Alternatives to the Audio guide for Deaf Museum Visitors

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Alternatives to the Audio guide for Deaf Museum Visitors What is the difference between deaf, Deaf, and hard of hearing? Deaf- an individual who is active in the Deaf ... – PowerPoint PPT presentation

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Title: Alternatives to the Audio guide for Deaf Museum Visitors


1
Alternatives to the Audio guide for Deaf Museum
Visitors
2
What is the difference between deaf, Deaf, and
hard of hearing?
  • Deaf- an individual who is active in the Deaf
    community through sign language and culture.
    Often diagnosed as profoundly deaf and sign
    language is their primary form of communication.
  • deaf- an individual who is medically diagnosed as
    deaf (ranging from moderate to profound in one
    ear or both) but may not necessarily know sign
    language or associate with Deaf culture and
    communities.
  • Hard of hearing- an individual who is medically
    diagnosed as hard of hearing can have mild to
    moderate hearing loss and may not know sign
    language but are able to communicate verbally.
  • Can be diagnosed at any age, but when deafness is
    genetic or occurs due to a childhood illness,
    spoken language is not usually acquired and the
    child relies on sign language to communicate.

3
How does this effect museums?
  • Deaf/deaf visitors cannot use standard audio
    guides.
  • Capital D Deaf visitors in particular, who
    learn English or any written form of a spoken
    language as a secondary language, may have
    difficulty in reading due to grammar and syntax
    differences.
  • Museum technologies are excluding Deaf/deaf
    visitors.

4
Alternative Options for the Deaf
  • 1. Sign Language Based Tour that is on a PDA or
    smartphone that can be downloaded prior to a
    visit or given out at a museum.
  • 2. Captioned videos or podcasts that can be
    downloaded onto MP3 players or streamed on the
    museum website.

5
  • BSL tour in the Tate Modern Gallery
  • Tate Modern's BSL Tour was the first sign
    language guide of a museum collection.
  • The handheld computer plays video clips of
    interpreters signing a tour of highlights of the
    displays.
  • The tour provides on-demand interpretation for
    deaf visitors in their preferred language, as an
    alternative to having to wait for a
    BSL-interpreted gallery talk.

6
Whats the response to the Tate Modern?
7
British Museum BSL Videos
  • Video project with the Frank Barnes School for
    Deaf children, which is one of the few schools in
    England which promotes a BSL bilingual approach.
  • The British Museum asked three groups of Frank
    Barnes students to use BSL to describe some of
    the key objects in the Museum.
  • The project was supported by a grant from the
    Trusthouse Charitable Foundation. The videos were
    filmed by Remark! a company managed and run by
    Deaf people

8
British Museum BSL Multimedia Tour
  • 2009 Press release announced new set of handheld
    guides launches at the British Museum, designed
    to allow visitors to learn more about the British
    Museums collections. This includes
  • A Multimedia Guide available in 11 different
    languages, including British Sign Language (BSL)
  • An Audio Description Guide (in English only)
  • A Childrens Multimedia Guide (in English only)
  • The new Multimedia Guide, made possible by
    sponsorship from Korean Air, will be available in
    eleven languages (English, Korean, Arabic,
    French, German, Italian, Japanese, Mandarin,
    Russian, and Spanish, and a separate guide for
    British Sign Language).
  • The Audio Description Guide has in-depth
    descriptive audio commentaries of each of the 220
    objects for visually impaired people (English
    only), while the British Sign Language Guide will
    launch with signed videos of about 120 objects.
    Videos will be added so as to include the full
    220 objects on the BSL Multimedia Guide by
    mid-January 2010.
  • The Multimedia Guides, with the exception of the
    Audio Description Guide, will use a portable
    touchscreen device, the XP Vision, made by
    Antenna Audio.

9
Museum Sign Language Guide Project
  • 2008, the European Commission gave funds for the
    Museum Sign Language Guide project, which aims at
    making information of museums and exhibitions
    more accessible for deaf and hard of hearing
    people.
  • These videoguides enable Deaf people to receive
    information in Sign Language and thus accompany
    Deaf museum visitors through the exhibition,
    transferring the same information as hearing
    people get through audio-guides or within a
    guided-tour.
  • Within the course of the project MuseumGuides for
    three partner-museums are produced the Art
    Collection of the Veste Coburg (Coburg/Germany),
    Schönbrunn Castle (Vienna/Austria) and the Museum
    of Recent History (Celje/Slovenia). The Art
    Collection of Veste Coburg and the Schönbrunn
    Castle have actively used sign language guides.
  • Another main result of the project are the
    Guidelines for the Production of Sign Language
    videos. The purpose of this is to summarize the
    results and experience of the project work and
    help museums interested in creating their own
    MuseumGuides for Deaf People reducing the extent
    of external consultancy and thus the cost of
    development therefore guaranteeing the
    sustainability of the project.

10
Whats in the US
  • Unfortunately, no permanent exhibitions have
    captioned video tours or ASL tours.
  • Museums that have technologies capable of
    becoming more Deaf accessible- LACMA, MoMA,
    Walker Art Center, and Brooklyn Museum using cell
    phones and MP3 players.
  • Museum of Science in Boston implemented one of
    the first ASL tours for a traveling exhibition on
    a PDA.

11
Museum of Science, Boston ASL PDA tour
  • Supported by the National Science Foundation and
    making its premiere at the Museum of Science,
    Boston, on October 27, 2005 Star Wars Where
    Science Meets Imagination used all six Star Wars
    films as a gateway to examining technologies of
    today and tomorrow.
  • Multimedia PDA tour developed with Antenna Audio
    that also had an ASL option which displayed an
    ASL interpretation of the audio guide option.
  • The MoS felt that the Star Wars exhibit was a
    good opportunity to use a new technology (at the
    time) to engage visitors to make them have a
    cool gadget like the characters in Star Wars.
  • Overall, Deaf visitors found the ASL tour to be
    empowering, giving them independence and access
    to content. However, additional cultural issues
    related to timing, learning style and norms need
    to be taken into account for future tours. They
    also recommended that the next handheld tour have
    more graphical content and keyboards and that
    tour content needs to be reexamined in the
    context of the deaf visitor.

12
How can US museums change?
  • Apply for grants.
  • Become more involved with the Deaf community.
  • Partner with companies that work with the Deaf
    community by providing assistive technology such
    as Sorenson VRS or KeenGuides.

13
Sorenson VRS and KeenGuides
  • Sorenson Video Relay Services provides free
    videophone and other technology services to deaf
    and hard of hearing individuals. Deaf or hard of
    hearing individuals can call another individual
    and communicate through a certified interpreter
    or call another videophone number to communicate
    with another Deaf or hard of hearing individual.
  • Sorenson BuzzCards is an app for your iPhone or
    iPod touch. A BuzzCard is used to communicate
    more easily with people who don't know sign
    language. Create cards ahead of time and make or
    edit cards on-the-go, easier communication in
    everyday situations like ordering a cab or food.
    To use a BuzzCard, just pick the card you want to
    show, and then hold up your iPhone or iPod touch
    so that it can be seen and read.
  • The Sorenson Video Center for the iPhone OS app
    is now available for Sorenson customers who have
    an iPhone, an iPod touch, or iPad devices. The
    Video Center app is a mobile version of the Video
    Center feature that is available on the Sorenson
    videophone. This mobile version of the Video
    Center lets you view SignMail video messages and
    all other videos that are available on the
    Sorenson videophone right on your iPhone, iPod
    touch, or iPad device.
  • KeenGuides creates short-format video (30-90
    seconds) on a mobile platform by GPS location
    (geocoded) tagged with categories (like good for
    kids, or Civil War.) and accessible for people
    with foreign languages and disabilities.
    KeenGuides has created ASL tours and cued speech
    tours that can be downloaded from iTunes or the
    web site.

14
Issues of Accessibility
  • ADA- 1990. Americans with Disabilities Actonly
    publicly funded places need to have TDDs,
    interpreters, or assistive listening devices
    (including many museums) however there are
    clauses that state that a museum or any publicly
    funded institution does not have to comply with
    accessibility if it causes an undue financial
    burden or alters the fundamental structure of
    the museum.
  • Acceptance of sign language as a languagevaries
    from country to country, and the US has only
    began to accept American Sign Language as a
    foreign language, separate from English (ASL is
    not considered an official language of the US,
    but neither is English).
  • Stereotypes and cultural fallacies that have been
    upheld through time. Deaf culture and community
    needs to be accepted as well as the fact that
    many people who legally have a disability, do not
    consider themselves disabled.
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