Abstract

The California School for the Deaf—Riverside is now at the fieldtest stage of its ESEA Title IV-C project to develop an interactive computer-videodisc system for the teaching of language and reading skills to hearing-impaired students. This 3-year project has produced two 27-minute videodiscs, a program authoring system, a management system, carrels to house all hardware, and an interface card that permits the Apple II Plus computer to control all videodisc functions and to combine computer-generated text and student tasks with external video.

Through the project-designed authoring program, tasks are created to teach language and reading skills via 10 intervention formats. The student is automatically branched through these activities, which require him or her to acknowledge captions appearing on the screen; sequence events; recognize correctness of grammar; recognize correctness of syntax; respond to questions; and categorize, spell, capitalize, punctuate, and construct sentences and questions. Student interaction with this system is accomplished primarily through a light pen; however, the keyboard is used for the spelling tasks.

Since the computer inserts the captions and all printed tasks on the screen, rather than text being embedded permanently on the videodiscs, many different reading levels, language concepts, and instructional objectives can be achieved through the use of the same sequence of video material. The task application for the visuals produced is limitless.

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