KITE brings out audio books, sign language-adapted classes

Effort is to help the visually challenged and the hearing impaired

The State has taken another significant leap in digital inclusion by incorporating audio books, particularly helpful for visually challenged children, and sign language-adapted classes for hearing impaired children, in the First Bell digital classes.

The Kerala Infrastructure and Technology for Education (KITE) has released the audio books and the sign language-adapted classes for revision portions for Classes 10 and 12, highlighting the focus areas, for the annual examinations in March, as part of the classes aired through the KITE VICTERS educational channel.

The revision class audio books can be heard like one would listen to a radio programme and are easily downloadable and shareable on mp3 format. The entire Class 10 revision is covered in just 10 hours, says K. Anvar Sadath, CEO, KITE, in a statement here.

All material will be available on the First Bell portal firstbell.kite.kerala.gov.in The portal facilitates easy downloading and sharing of the audio books.

KITE has issued directions to the officials concerned to extend the broadband Internet facility provided to schools as part of the High-Tech School project to the students who require these.

Free software-based screen reading software ‘Orca’ has been installed in all laptops supplied to schools, and all visually challenged teachers are given specialised information and communications technology (ICT) training by KITE.

Visually challenged children are already listening to the audio of the First Bell digital classes in a big way. The exclusive audio books will be an added advantage to these students, says Mr. Sadath.

Sign-language

Specific classes with sign-language adapted content have also been developed for students with hearing disabilities. At present, these students are provided with special classes developed by their teachers at the school levels.

However, with the inclusion of sign language-adapted classes, they will be able to understand the revision classes in a more structured manner. The State Council of Educational Research and Training has provided sign-adapted training to teachers in the sector.

First Bell has completed telecast of over 6,300 classes (3,150 hours) till date, including for the Kannada and Tamil medium along with the general medium classes.

The White Board programme by the Samagra Shiksha, Kerala, for students with special needs is in place in the State. With the inclusion of the audio books and the sign-language adapted classes, the First Bell programme has created a new model of digital inclusion. This model will subsequently be replicated for all classes, says Mr. Sadath.