| CLIENT | Megan Gross, ASL Instructor, Speech Pathology & Audiology Advisor: Dr. John Femiani |
| VISION | During the pandemic, all classes moved to a remote setting with more or less success. One subject matter that had some difficulty was the sign language learning classes, in particular use of video conferencing for classrooms. According to students, the process of starting and managing a video conference to practice sign language skills was burdensome enough to avoid it whenever possible. During a call, changing focus depends on an audible cue such as who is presently speaking. Based on that cue, the video of the individual speaking takes center stage visually. For a group of people communicating via sign language, a video conference dialogue is more cumbersome. The groups must agree to pin the moderator, use the raised hand emoji universally in order to speak, and then someone must assign focus based on some other understanding. Being said, the experience is not as fluid as a face-to-face conversation would be. |
| MISSION | The project mission is to enable ASL students to obtain speaker view during a video conferencing session while only using ASL through using an existing tool developed by Google Research. Additionally, the team aims to simplify the process of installing the software, learning how to use the software, and automating the activation of the software whenever a video conferencing room is opened. In order to complete these goals, the team will conduct meetings with ASL students to ensure they are clear on requirements of what ASL students need in order to successfully use the software. The team also looks to conduct student research in order to determine ASL student perceptions and satisfaction with their video conferencing with ASL experience. Overall, the team wishes to enable those communicating with ASL to be able to video conference with ease, gaining speaker view, while still preserving the ASL environment. |
| TEAM | Evan Franzman Liam Griffin Luke Hoffman Ethan Mullins |
| SITE | asl-portal.capstone.csi.miamioh.edu/index.html* |
Humanitarian, Outstanding Project Award, R&D, Spring 2022, Track I, University, Wednesday April 20th, 2022