ASL’s Connections with Coding

My other blog post this week focused on coding and its applications in the classroom. This got me thinking about American Sign Language and how it relates to coding. I was particularly interested because I have mentioned in my other posts ASL is its very own language separate from English yet, many coding languages are in written English. Some people who use ASL as their first language do not read English nor should they be required to considering that it is not their first language. This got me interested in what technology is out there for programmers that use ASL. In my search I was not able to find anything about a coding language or a method of coding that utilizes ASL, however I was surprised by what I was able to learn. I found an article written by the tech company Lenovo that discusses the use of ASL in technology. It discusses how ASL is actually an easy way for programmers to communicate because of the particulars of the language. It also discusses ASL’s introduction to technology and goes on to explain its uses now. For example, some video conferencing platforms have an ASL interpretation function as well as captions and transcripts. Through my search I also found a video where a programmer that is hard of hearing describes her experience working in the field as someone that is a part of the deaf and hard of hearing community.

This was attention-grabbing because she talks about using video conferencing websites to communicate with colleagues and some of the adaptations that she has had to make in order for it to work for her. For example, she mentioned asking the other person to type what they wanted to say and then share their screen so that she could read it. She also mentions ways that she compensated for the inaccuracies of caption technology. In an effort to urge companies to assess their accessibility she mentions that sites should have an alt-text description of images for those that use technology to read sites aloud. This stood out to me as I recently learned about the importance of this as I was learning to build this site. I am surprised that I had never heard about this important technological concept that helps to make a site more accessible and I plan to learn more about this as I continue to build on this blog.

Additionally, during my search I found some videos that were not necessarily what I was looking for, but were very interesting. One video by Nicholas Renotte documents him using python to code a Sign Language detection site that scans his webcam and decodes the signs that he is using.

This was fascinating to watch because he walks through all the steps to building this site. It is exciting to see how technology can begin to be used to bridge the gap between visual and spoken languages. There is still a long way to go from here, but it is a definite step in the right direction. This got me thinking about a video that I saw recently as I was scrolling through social media about two college students that have developed gloves that are able to speak or write out what the person is signing.

I think that this is a great invention and I am curious to see where it goes. I know that some people that belong to the deaf or hard of hearing community do not like the idea of cochlear implants because they take away the need to know and learn sign language which could eventually lead to a loss of the language. However, with a tool like these gloves people in the deaf or hard of hearing community could communicate with the general public (people that do not know ASL) in their own language. Obviously, there is still a language barrier as the people that use English as their first language would struggle to communicate back, although many people that are deaf or hard of hearing are very good at reading lips so there is certainly a possibility for a conversation to be had.

The last thing that I want to share from my search is a video that showcases Scratch being used to code a game that helps youth to learn the ASL alphabet.

It is clear that youth will be able to learn from the functioning site, however the video also provides you with a link to the code behind the site that is not yet complete where children can work to finish the code. I envision this being a very engaging activity for them as they would not only get to learn sign language which typically excites them, but they would also get to work on their coding abilities.