SITE 2011 – Nashville, Tenn

1. Lambert’s Colorful World: The Use of RFID Embedded Storybooks with Deaf Students to Improve Emergent and Early Literacy Shari Shari Dr. Robert Hancock robert.hancock@selu.edu Dr. Becky Sue Parton becky.parton@selu.edu SITE 2011 – Nashville, Tenn

2. LAMBERT LIBRIS A book series for bilingual Deaf children Funded by a grant from NCTI http://www.lifted-up.org/ Shari Shari The Louisiana Initiative for Technology Exploration with the Deaf “Storybook sharing can serve as a bridge between the language of delivery (American Sign Language) and the language of printed material (English) for Deaf children.” SITE 2011 – Nashville, Tenn

3. Development Summary • Team decided on “colors” for the story topic. • Dr. Hancock created all the book illustrations. • The book was published. • RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) tags were put on each page. • Adhesive back tags were used. • Tags were placed in alt page corners. • Tags were covered with a sticker. • Native Deaf signers created the ASL videos. • We mixed the images and ASL into exe files. • We authored software to respond to the tags. • Burton Vision created a companion assessment tool. • Twenty comprehension questions were identified. • The quiz was displayed in both ASL and English. • A progress tracking component was included for teachers. SITE 2011 – Nashville, Tenn

4. Sample Book Pages The entire storybook is available on our website. SITE 2011 – Nashville, Tenn

5. Sample Screenshot of Video All of the ASL videos are available on our website. SITE 2011 – Nashville, Tenn

6. Sample Screenshot of the Assessment The quiz was also signed by native, Deaf adults.Mike Burton, founder of Burton Vision, created a custom module for the project. SITE 2011 – Nashville, Tenn

7. Prototype Testing Each classroom was given a laptop computer, an RFID reader, a book, and the software. Teachers could choose how to introduce and use the storybook – most chose “centers” only. Students were also asked to take the assessment at the end of the study. SITE 2011 – Nashville, Tenn

8. Photos! On our website, you can see a video of the students using Lambert Libris. SITE 2011 – Nashville, Tenn

9. Findings & Discussion • The children were excited to use the system and it appeared to keep them engaged in the story. • The children had no difficulty operating the equipment. • None of the teachers allowed the system to be taken home but that needs to be an area of research – i.e. does the system facilitate the parent/child bond. • The teachers liked the assessment system conceptually, but thought the comprehension questions were too difficult. • The goal of Lambert Libris is to improve literacy long-term but that was not addressed in this initial study. • We hypothesize that greater gains in literacy will occur among students who otherwise would not be exposed to native signers. SITE 2011 – Nashville, Tenn

10. News We were honored to be a 2010 Bright Idea Award Winner at the national competition in Washington DC in November 2010! SITE 2011 – Nashville, Tenn