BSL
Our students were asked to build a web site that informed the College staff and students about the basics of
British Sign Language (BSL). This meant that before they could begin to build their websites the students had to learn the BSL alphabet and some friendly greetings such as hello, goodbye and how are you?
We asked a native user of BSL, Caroline Bruce, to come along and talk to us so that we could use the language ourselves. Caroline then gave us tips on how we could improve our communication using BSL. During the design stages of their website, Colin Bowie, the College’s expert on copyright issues, spoke with the class regarding how they could build content without violating copyright laws. The class decided to take all of their own images and also make their own image/video montages.
The students then went on to build, test and evaluate their web sites. This was a practice run for the real assessment and the first time that some of the students had used HTML – not for the faint hearted! As their Lecturer, I was particularly proud of the work the students produced because I could see that they understood how important it was to communicate effectively with people using words and images. The students worked hard to produce clear images of each alphabet sign and also worked hard on getting their greetings right. Have a look at one of the examples.