Finn Eilertsen

The Norwegian title TegnRom¹ could be translated to SignSpace¹, SignRoom¹ or SignROM¹, as the Norwegian word "rom" also means space, room and ROM like in CD-ROM. The title reflects the way we look at TegnRom¹. In some way, it represents a space where sign language is the only language used. It could also be perceived as rooms with sign language, so that TegnRom¹ is a sign language space with rooms within it.

As the number 1 indicates, TegnRom¹ is the first in a series. TegnRom² is scheduled to finish on December 1st, 2000. In total, 5 CD-ROMs is to be made. The last one, TegnRom⁵, is supposed to be released early in 2002.

TegnRom was made as a support for parents of deaf and hard-of-hearing children. In Norway, these parents are offered a 40-week sign language course. So the target users of TegnRom is hearing parents that is not fluent in sign language and their deaf or hard-of-hearing children.

The aim of TegnRom is not only to improve the sign language abilites of the parents and the children. It is also intended to support communication between parents and children, so it enhances the sign language communication between them.

The thematic contents of TegnRom is closely tied to a part of the 40-week course, and is also designed to fit the educational level of 4-year-old children. This means that the TegnRom can be used at a time when the thematic contents of the 40-weeks course fits the contents of TegnRom. We hope this will make it easier for parents to actively practice what they learn on the course with their children. We hope they can use TegnRom together and discuss what they see on the screen. All languages are best learnt through active human-to-human communication, so our application is not a substition for it, but rather an incentive for it.

TegnRom¹ consists of six parts, which in short can be described as follows:

• Educational Game: "Winter Landscape"

• Educational Game: "Village"

• Educational Game: "Vehicles"

• Game (3 variants): Catch Objects. Instructions in sign language.

• Exercises for parents. Sign Language video text with questions from the text.

• SignPlayer included with three texts.

The thematic issues for TegnRom¹ correspond to module 10 in the 40-week sign language course for parents with deaf children. The thematics like vehicles or winter landscape is therefore not picked arbitrarily, but chosen to be in close correspondance with the course.

These parts can easily be selected from the program menu, as shown in figure 1 on the previous page.

I will give a short description of each part, in a random order.

This application presents digital video of sign language and a translated text in written language simultaneously. As figure 2 shows, the result enables the users to wath sign language with subtitles. This part of TegnRom is supposed as a tool for training the parents in percepting sign language. For more information on the SignSmith/SignPlayer companion, look at

http://www.ks-moller.no.

In TegnRom, the users can run the SignPlayer application from within the TegnRom root menu. On TegnRom¹ three texts is included. The texts are chosen to correspond with the thematic issues of TegnRom¹ which is taken from module 10 in the 40-week sign language course for parents.

Figure 2: SignPlayer

Even if the title indicates that this part is aimed at the parents, there is nothing against letting the children use this part too! As mentioned earlier, we hope that parents and their children find TegnRom as a good opportunity for communication and cooperation. The exercises contents of eight digital video clips, with a number of questions to each clip. You can browse through the clips, and you do not have to answer all the questions right to proceed. At the end of the last video clip, when the last question is answered, a summary of your input will be given on the screen. This will come as the number of questions answered, percentage of right answers and so on.

Even if this is mainly aimed at training parents in percepting sign language, it can also be a good basis for discussion with the children. The parents could ask the children what the woman on the video clip says, and discuss the contents. The issue in figure 3 is traffics and the way to school, which is a highly relevant issue for almost all parents and their children.

Figure 3: Exercises for parents

This part is mainly intended for the children. We hope that the children want to run this part just for fun. Even if it is just for fun, you should look at the instructions before starting the game, because it tells which objects you should catch. Which object that is the right to catch, varies randomly each time you start the game. The game comes in three variants.

The screenshot shown in figure 4, shows the variant with an alligator which is to catch falling balloons. The instruction video tells the children that the small alligator to the right, locked in the water cylinder, is sad and wants to be free. To help the small alligator free, you should control the alligator mother and help her catch the right balloons. Each time the right balloon is catched, the small alligator floats upward. If the wrong balloon is catched, it falls down one position. When an sufficent amount of balloons are catched, the small alligator reaches the top and flies down, holding a large collection of the balloons catched.

The two other games follows the same principles. In the alligator game, the children should learn to distinguish between colors and forms (on the balloons), given in sign language. In the two other game variants, the objects are related to other themes, like objects typical for christmas in the Santa Claus game and food in the monkey game.

Figure 4: Alligator Game

As figure 5 shows, a winter landscape is shown on the screen. The digital video shows an actress who describes what we can see on the screen. Then she tells about a certain situation that can be seen on the screen, for instance: "Look at the polar bear in the igloo! I think it want to go out! Could you click on the bear?"

When the user clicks on the bear, it pops outside the igloo. It freezes and shakes by cold, and then goes back to the igloo. When the animation is done, the digital video plays again, and this time comments what happened like this: "Did you see? An polar bear that freezes? How odd!" Then a new digital video appears, and tells the user to find another thing on the screen. Every time the user clicks on the right object, she is rewarded with an animation. Figure 5 shows the animation of an elephant on a sleigh which is pulled up the hill by a mouse. Improbable, but it is intended to be fun for the children!

The order in which the objects are presented and selected is also random, you never know which object to select when you run this game. This is an incentive to actually watch what is said in sign language on the digital video clip.

Figure 5: Winter Landscape

In this game the opening screen, as shown in figure 6, presents a small village. On the playground you see seven grownups. You can see a policeman, a baker, a vicar and so on. In the background you can see their workplaces. There is a policecar, a bakery, a church among others. They correspond to the grownups. The object of the game is to click and drag the grownup back to work. The introductory video goes like this: "See! What a cosy little village! But look! The kids [in front of the policecar] are sad. Why? Yes, because the grownups are occupying the playground! Could you help them back to work so the children could play on the playground?"

Then a new video clip describes a grownup. It does not say "Drag the policeman to the policecar." It only hints, like this: "Can you see a man in a dark uniform... " and leaves it to the user to figure out where to place the grownup. When the grownup is placed on the right location, a screen appears with pictures, as shown in figure 7 on next page. Here a new video clip tells a story accompanied with pictures that shifts during the videoclip. The stories are small, amusing "rewards". Notice the small image of the baker outside the bakery. He is removed from the playground and back to work. When all grownups are back at work, an animation is shown where the kids are playing on the playground along with a commentatory video clip.

This game is intended to support communication between parents and children. The parents are given an oppurtinity to explain why the baker belongs to the particular building that represent a bakery, or tell the children what a baker normally does, that it exists a bakery where they actually live and so on. In short, we hope this game can function as an incentive to communication.

Figure 6: Village

Figure 7: Village - Reward Story for Baker

As figure 8 shows, the opening screen shows a landscape with 15 vehicles. This game is centered around two thematic issues: vehicles and numbers. Every vehicle has a set of wheels. First you are told to identify all vehicles that has one wheel. This is of course told you in sign language by the digital video placed on the upper right part of the screen. Next you should find the ones with two wheels and so on. Every time you find a vehicle with the right number of wheels, they are moved up on the road on the upper part of the screen.

When all vehicles with a particular number of wheels are found and placed on the road, they drive into the tunnel and disappears. Every time one vehicle is found, the speedometer at the bottom of the screen increments by one. Figure 8 shows a screenshot where three vehicles with four wheels are found.

When all vehicles are found, the speedometer should go to 15. But the speedometer only goes to 14. So when the last vehicles disappears into the tunnell, the speedometer shakes and then explodes. A video clip is then played, telling you that to repair the speedometer, you should help [the actor on the clip] to get the vehicles back, so that the speedometer can be reset. Here we are concentrating on numbers. She tells you to hit the number "1" on the keyboard when we are going to get back one vehicle, and to hit the number "2" when there are two vehicles to get back. The numbers refer to how many vehicles with a particular count of wheels. This also gives the children training in counting from 1 to 5. The speedometer also shows counting from 1 to 14, like the well-known number line widely used as a metaphor in mathematics education for children.

Figure 8: Vehicles - 3 vehicles with 4 wheels are found

To ease the use of TegnRom for the parents that yet is new to sign language, every screen has a help text with the contents of the video clips. Figure 9 shows an example of the help text, taken from the Village part.

Figure 9: Example on help text

A similar help text can be found in all parts of TegnRom. Every paragraph in the help text corresponds to a video clip. It simply tells what is said in the video clip.

Developing applications for computers is an expensive and time-consuming task. Reusing graphics and code provides big savings, as development time is shortened significantly. With the TegnRom series we have developed a product with a high reusability, also if it is translated to other languages. The TegnRom series contains of five main components:

• Concepts and design
• The application code
• The graphics
• The digital video files with sign language
• Text on the screen and in the help menus

For translating TegnRom to other languages, only the two last components needs to be replaced.

In addition, minor changes to the graphics will be required, like replacing the TegnRom logo and editing the credits screen, and changing the logo in the upper left part of the screens. But this requires minimal effort.

A possible solution for translating the TegnRom series to other languages could be that you produce these components:

• New video clips
• Text in companion with the video clips
• New title replacing "TegnRom"

By sending this to us in an appropriate format, we could produce a complete CD-ROM application for you.

This is only a suggestion. Other solutions are of course possible, please take contact for further discussion!