As you may have seen in my weekly reflection this week, I made a wordle of all the random vocabulary words I have used that don’t fit into a specific category. I find myself wondering what random words are in sign language throughout the day. It’s awesome that I am learning new words, but I find it difficult to review them at the end of the day. However, this week I kept a list of those words and put them into a wordle that I can use for review. Â
I also discovered a super cool app this week. It is called ASL Inquiry. You have to pay to be able to access the full app, but there are many free features that I enjoy. My favorite thing about this app is the dictionary feature. You can type in any word, and it will give you a short video of a woman showing you the sign. You can watch the video as many times as you need, and it comes in super handy. Sometimes it can be difficult to learn signs from a photo as they are often moving actions, that’s why I especially love this video dictionary. Most of their lessons you have to buy, but they give you a free daily lesson, with new vocab each day.
This week I also learned my colors of the rainbow plus pink, brown, white, and black. Â
Although I did focus on some groups of words this week, there were many random words that don’t fit into the categories. Sometimes I will be doing something, and I’ll wonder what a certain word is in sign language. Which has caused me to stop and google many words. This is great, but I find myself struggling to review these words, as I don’t always remember to practice them all when I’m reviewing. So, when I saw we were making graphics this week I decided to make a wordle of all the random vocabulary I had learned, so I would have something to review.
I really enjoyed using the wordle site. It was super simple and quick to use and arranged my words very nicely. All I had to do was type in my words and click create. I would definitely use these in my future classroom
I ended up having to fly home for some family things and ran into an old teacher of mine. She worked as the youth worker in my high school, so I stopped to say hello. Out of nowhere while I was talking, she stopped me and said “hey I have a book for you.” From her filing cabinet she pulls a book on how to learn sign language. The book was called Signing how to speak with your hands by Elaine Costello. What are the odds! She had no clue I was doing this project, nor had I ever expressed any interest in learning ASL. I had started my ASL journey just three weeks earlier and here she was giving me this book.
The book: Signing how to speak with your hands by Elaine Costello
This week I decided to learn from my book, which I will insert photos of. The common phrases section overlaps with the common phrases I learned in week 2 and continued to practice in week 3, which made the process a little easier. There are several pages of common phrases, there for this week I am aiming to focus on the first three pages.
World day of the deaf
While looking into the deaf community, I learned that there is an international day for the deaf, where sign language is celebrated and appreciated. This holiday passed not too long ago, during the week of the deaf, the same week I started this learning process. The national day of the deaf is on the last Monday of September, which this year fell on September 26. The purpose of the national day of the deaf is to bring awareness to the challenges and difficulties of the deaf community and also to highlight the importance of sign language to all people. This day was started in 1958 by the world federation of the deaf. They want to raise awareness of deaf rights and struggles so that everyone can be a little more accommodating. Another thing it raises awareness for is hearing loss. Many people will face preventable hearing loss in their lifetime, that they potentially could have saved had they known more about the topic
At the beginning of the book, I read about compound words. Much like in English, two words can be compounded to make a new word. An example of this in sign language is the sign “lunch.” The word “lunch” is made up of the signs for “eat” and “noon.” The first section of my book is labeled common phrases, where it teaches me how to say basic words and phrases, such as hello and how are you. This got me thinking, how do you ask a question in sign language? Often times in English we convey a question by simply raising our voices at the end, however that is not an option in sign language. I looked in the front of my book and was able to find the answer. There are two ways to ask a question in ASL you can either put a question mark at the beginning of your sentence, which looks like drawing a question mark in the air or you can simply hold your sign a little longer at the end. Â
The word of the week this week is my favorite color : Purple – Sign the letter P and turn your wrist
Explore Makerspaces through a Google search and/or through your social media platform #makerspace . What resources and information can you find? Discuss the makerspace we visited and how you envision utilizing such a space in your future teaching career.
I started this week by learning what a makerspace is. A makerspace is a collaborative experience for students to create, develop skills and solve problems. Makerspaces can be in person or online. In a classroom it might look for example if you wanted to teach your class how to make stop motion animation. The teacher would have all the lego and Ipads ready for the students, with a stop motion app or software already on the Ipads. Outside of the classroom you could have an online space for the students to post on. I think it would be a really fun idea to have the students post freely, rather than assigned postings. Watching other students share their discoveries and inquiries could be inspiring to another student. There are many benefits to makerspace, one of them being that it gives the students a chance to experiment. On an online learning platform it is always much easier to delete and restart, or save and restart, compared to on paper. However, experimentalism is a fundamental part of all makerspace, which means the teacher must ensure there are enough supplies and combinations for students to truly experiment. Many makerspaces allow children to freely explore and follow their curiosities. Â
I think that fresh grade could be used as an online makerspace. I used it in middleschool, but only to post assignments. It is set up similarly to a social media account, which can be exciting for children. You set up your profile with a photo and a biography. Then you are able to post photos or videos and caption them. Another benefit to fresh grade is that parents are allowed to access fresh grade as well, so parents can stay caught up with their children’s work. Â
As for an offline makerspace, I think it would be a great experience to have a free for all craft day. That means the teacher would supply as many different crafts supplies as possible, and let the students make whatever they would like. This would give the students a chance to be as creative as possible and make whatever they want. Students are able to build freely, backpedal and make changes.
Another makerspace I thoroughly enjoyed in elementary school was the penny boat challenge. The class was divided into groups and given a specific set of supplies. Given the supplies given each group has to build the best boat they can. This is tested by how many pennies the boat can hold at the end. This was one of my favorite activities as a child, it taught creativity, problem-solving, perseverance, and teamwork.Â
Last week I worked on learning the basics of sign language, however, I am not done with them. Just like any language we need to practice it in order to become efficient and fluent in that language. Not only are we practicing the words and definitions, but we are practicing the unusual and new sounds of the language. Many languages use completely different phonetics than English and we have to get used to pronouncing. In my opinion, sign language is even more of a jump as we are not even using oral language, I need to adjust to using my hands to communicate in sign language. For these reasons I try my best to review one of my basics each night, either the alphabet, the numbers 1-10, or greetings. Currently, I am feeling most confident in the alphabet and want to show you a video of me doing it. Â
As of last week, I am feeling most confident with the alphabet, so I wanted to show you guys a video of my progress. However, I have not been feeling nearly as confident with my numbers or simple words. Therefore, instead of adding new content this week I want to continue to focus on those two before I move on.
History
In order to dive deeper into my learning, I have decided to look into the history of sign language. There is no specific day that sign language was invented, it has evolved over time to be the language that it is now. Even though it is impossible to be sure, research talks about a monk who created a version of sign language to live out his vow of silence. His name was Pedro de Leon, and he began communicating with his hands in the 1500s. Later on, in 1620, a man named Juan Pablo Bonet developed this language by creating a dictionary of signs and an alphabet. simultaneously in a small commune in Martha’s Vineyard was developing their own version of sign language. This version lasted many years due to the dominant and recessive genes common in the people from this commune.Â
The first formal version of sign language was created by a French priest named Charles Michael de L’epee. He changed the French language into sign and created the first free public school for the deaf in Paris. American sign language was developed shortly after in the 1800s by Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet. Thomas was not deaf himself but was inspired by his neighbours deaf daughter. He traveled to Europe to meet with an deaf instructor of sign, Laurent Clerc. Together they founded the first American school for the deaf.Â
Everyone has a history of communicating with their hands, an informal version of sign language. As babies we reach our hands out for more and know to turn our heads away when we don’t like something or arent interested. This is sign language on the most basic level as babies use their hands to communicate until they are taught a formal language.
This week I made a screencast, highlighting the many attributes of the epic book website. Me and my partner, Emily, were able to make our screencast, but we struggled to edit our video. We tried to use iMovie to do our editing but ran into some technical difficulties. Once downloaded we were unable to get the video in the editor due to format issues.
Here’s our video…
The struggles we face are solvable with some dedication and time. It could be very helpful in a future classroom of mine with some extra practice. Screencasts are a great way to teach your students how to use resources online, this could be used at an older grade to teach students how to find scholarly articles and peer-reviewed sources. Screencasts would also be a very helpful tool for students to be to access at home. If I pre-record the lessons, students would be able to review the lessons online at home. This way students who need to see the lesson done again can see it without the whole class reviewing it. Those resources could come in handy again when reviewing topics from the earlier grade, to prep for future lessons.
Similarly to how we leave footprints when we step, when active online a digital footprint is left behind. In order to take a look at my own digital footprint, I googled my name. The first part that caught my attention was the images category. None of the photos were of me, but all photos related to my life. I was able to find content that I posted online to my own accounts. Such as my personal Instagram account, however my account is private so strangers are only able to view my profile photo and bio. I think its important to remember that even if your account is private there are still parts that strangers are able to view. My college of the Rockies pre-education certificate also popped up, which I would want a future employer to see, so I don’t mind it being there. Although I didn’t find much about myself online, surprisingly the first photo online that came up was of a different family member of mine. It makes me wonder if this family member realizes the digital footprint they are leaving behind and I will definitely be talking about with them.
While looking into digital footprints I learned that there are two types of digital footprints. An active footprint is the things we are posting knowing that you are putting that information out to the world forever. The second and more worrisome type of footprint is a passive footprint. A passive footprint is when data collected without the user being aware. This just proves that absolutely everything you contribute online could lead to a digital footprint, therefore we need to always be aware.
I had a great time learning ASL this week and am excited to share the experience with you all. Although it was challenging to memorize it all, I was able to come up with a couple of tricks to help me remember them.
I decided to start with the basics, the alphabet. The alphabet is an essential basic of any language, because that way if you don’t know a word then you can spell it out. I was able to memorize the first 5 letters of the alphabet easily as the hand signals look like the letters themselves. In order to ensure I was doing the proper signals, I watched a YouTube video and followed along.Â
I also decided tolearn my numbers up to ten. The first five are simple and how I expected. Then you bring one finger down per number starting with the pinky, with a turning thumbs up for ten.Â
