Irish Deaf Society

Brightspace has just accessed the whole of Ireland all of a sudden and completely broadened it for us.

Alvean Jones, Deaf adult course administrator, IDS

Challenge

To provide visual learning and widen reach

IDS offers a range of further education and training opportunities. Its courses in ISL, Ireland’s third official language, provide the opportunity for both hearing and Deaf members to learn. In addition, the Deaf community can take courses in subjects as diverse as driving theory and gardening, which are taught through ISL by experts and professional teachers.

IDS recognised the need for online learning before the COVID-19 pandemic. It was delivering all tuition in person, which made it very Dublin-centric, with only some regional delivery that couldn’t reach the full Deaf community. This restricted IDS from expanding its training to deliver ISL learning outside Ireland and provide wider social networking opportunities for the ISL-speaking community.

In response to the pandemic, IDS swiftly and efficiently transitioned online through online conferencing services, which served the organisation for a couple of years. However, the society felt it needed something more to provide a fully rounded learning experience.

“We were growing our quality assurance, adapting to really focus on the learner and the quality of what we give the learner,” explains Paul Grundy, IDS’ digital education officer. “We needed to jump ship from the kind of ad hoc Zoom approach to something that was more all-encompassing.”

At this time, IDS used a mix of systems to serve its members, some from within the organisation and others sourced externally. This made it cumbersome for course administrators to tie everything together to deliver learning.

“Data had to be reformatted for a different system or database, or had to be used in a different way,” explains Paul. “With learners’ grades, for example, data had to be collected and used across different systems and databases, both internal and external. For similar reasons, the verification and authentication processes that moderate learners’ work and grades were very time-consuming.”

Tutors would message students when they needed to remind or prompt them to do something, such as submit an assignment, but writing English is a challenge for some tutors whose first language is ISL, not English. This made creating written messages a labour-intensive, administrative burden.

IDS saw an appetite for language learning, with demand “going through the roof,” says Paul. But whilst feedback on the courses and teachers was great, learners lacked access to resources between lessons. IDS sought a digital learning platform to address all its challenges and provide a learning experience to suit its members’ and educators’ needs.

Solution

Standardised, consistent digital learning

After early trials pre-COVID, IDS launched a pilot course on Brightspace with one tutor and eight learners in spring 2022. From then on, the society steadily rolled out the learning platform, training all tutors and introducing more content on the platform over time. By autumn 2023, it was offering 31 courses to over 245 learners.

Pre-course units introduce learners to Brightspace, giving them direction on how to navigate the platform. IDS made use of D2L-provided videos and also developed some for itself, with instruction in ISL and other languages.

Brightspace has given learners the opportunity to continue, and reinforce, learning between lessons, which previously were their only opportunity.

Paul Grundy, digital education officer, IDS

IDS recognised the value of a phased platform implementation, adding something each term to develop its learning offering. It looked at feedback, particularly from learners, to inform its strategic phased approach, and this resulted in improved consistency and ease of use for learners.

“In the very early days, each teacher delivered their course and had their own resources, and it was a bit ad hoc,” says Paul. “Now, we’re moving towards a more standardised, consistent approach, with branding and so on. We want all our courses, regardless of subject and level, to essentially look the same.”

IDS uses Intelligent Agents in Brightspace to ease the burden of written English communication for signing tutors. This automates message generation and delivery to, for example, prompt learners to send in assignments, log in to their courses or access new content.

Results

Enhanced accessibility and visual learning

With Brightspace, IDS can reach learners across the whole of Ireland and beyond. Melissa Howlett, ISL course administrator, cites one of the society’s learners in Spain, whose attendance is 80%, while Alvean Jones, Deaf adult course administrator, mentions a learner in Australia who participates in classes at 3am local time.

“We have moved beyond the walls of Dublin,” says Paul. “We’ve had learners in Australia, Spain, the US, the UK and Canada.”

Brightspace has enabled IDS to not only broaden its learner base but also to serve learners better by plugging its resources gap. Visual learning functionality equips IDS to meet the needs of Deaf learners digitally by delivering signed courses in members’ first language. Melissa says: “The philosophy of the IDS is ‘nothing about us, without us’. Being Deaf is not about how much or how little you hear; it’s about the language you use most of the time—language preference and identity.”

Classes are delivered live, but there are plenty of materials to help IDS learners reinforce their learning between lessons—the society’s language library alone now contains about 400 vocabulary videos.

Instead of using multiple systems, teachers and learners can now access information in just one place, which has helped with administrative challenges. “Brightspace has centralised and streamlined data collection,” says Paul. “And verification and authentication processes are now much quicker.”

Now, we’re reaching learners potentially worldwide and can provide a learning experience between lessons. The rapid growth of how we’re using the system, with such a small team, is a measure of success.

Paul Grundy, digital education officer, IDS

A learning platform must be user-friendly and intuitive, so IDS was delighted that its most recent end-of-course learner survey revealed that 90% of learners found the platform simple enough to navigate.

As IDS continues its digital learning journey, it reviews feedback to inform improvements to the learner experience. One adjustment the team made was to streamline the amount of material learners must navigate to simplify the learner journey. It has also seen the role its digital strategy can play in developing soft skills in its learners in order to increase their overall independence in life.

IDS set out to embrace digital learning to meet the needs of its learners and educators and widen its reach. It has succeeded in providing a visual online learning environment that learners around the globe can benefit from and has expanded its content offering to provide an all-round learning experience inside and outside of class.

Visit https://www.d2l.com/en-eu/solutions/associations/ to discover Brightspace for membership organisations.