More than 43,000,000 Americans have one or more physical or cognitive disabilities, a number that is increasing each year. Historically, society has tended to isolate and segregate individuals with disabilities, and, despite some improvements, such forms of discrimination against individuals with disabilities continue to be a serious and pervasive problem, persisting in many areas.

In July of 1990, The Americans with Disabilities Act was signed into law by President George Bush. This Act provides a clear and comprehensive national mandate to provide consistent and enforceable standards to address any type of discrimination against individuals with disabilities. Later Acts, the Telecommunications Act, Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act Amendments of 1998, and the Workforce Reinvestment Act, are more recent mandates that address technology accessibility and instructional design, requiring systems to be designed with accessibility built-in, where possible, for instructors and learners.

A unique project coordinated by UW-Milwaukee addresses the need of accessibility for deaf instructors. This project will train these instructors to adapt their traditional American Sign Language (ASL) classroom course to the component environments of videoconferencing and Blackboard. The project will take place in three phases: 1) instructor training, 2) ASL class implementation and evaluation, and 3) analysis of findings. After extensive monitoring, assessment, analysis and recommendations, it is anticipated that the project will serve as a model for involving the deaf community in distance teaching and learning.

The project timeline includes spring training and course development; summer implementation, monitoring and assessment, and fall and winter data/information analysis and refinement. This collaborative partnership between University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and Instructional Communications Systems (ICS), University of Wisconsin-Extension (UWEX) will train deaf instructors in spring workshops in instructional design for using videoconferencing and Blackboard for teaching ASL. The intensive ICS spring training will be taught via videoconferencing with Blackboard as the management tool and component technology. Through the use of their new skills, the instructors will provide a summer distance education course for deaf and hearing students in ASL.

The 21-hour summer course will be taught point-to-point between UW- Milwaukee and UW-Madison. Classes will meet three hours each week for seven weeks via videoconferencing with Blackboard serving as the course management tool and as a component technology for interaction. Thirty students, 15 per site are anticipated for the course. One of the trained instructors will serve as the major instructor and the other as the site coordinator at the second site. Monitoring and assessment for outcomes and adaptation will be designed and led by a deaf instructor from UW- Madison and a distance education specialist/instructional designer from ICS.

Both the overall project and the course will be carefully monitored and assessed throughout. This comprehensive evaluation of the project will include: 1) a pretest and posttest for both instructors and learners; 2) observation of interactions; 3) observation of integrated software; 4) self-reflection about learning through student journals, 5) evaluation of technical and site personnel, 6) overall course evaluation of the videoconferencing environment: Blackboard software, streaming video and facilities at both sites; learner knowledge through quizzes and discussions, and a final exam.

The findings will be used to develop an effective model to share with other institutions statewide, nationally, and internationally.