Visibility of eTwinning Projects Group July 2013 Newsletter
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------I Am ‘Hear’ for You – Introducing eTwinning
into the Classroom for the Hearing Impaired
by Patricia Zanfir
We must stimulate and develop our students’
creativity and I strongly believe that music is an
excellent means to do it!
According to Wikipedia, Deaf culture describes the
“social beliefs, behaviors, art, literary traditions,
history, values, and shared institutions of
communities that are affected by deafness and
which use sign languages as the main means of
communication. When used as a cultural label, the
word deaf is often written with a capital D, and
referred to as "big D Deaf" in speech and sign.
When used as a label for the audiological condition,
it is written with a lower case d.”
In Romania, the deaf community may not be as
well represented as in other countries, but it is
present and we do have a deaf community.
Officially and legally, it is represented by A.N.S.R
(The National Association for the Deaf in Romania).
Manuela Correia is a music teacher at Escola B/S
Domingos Capela, in Espinho, Portugal. She was
the eTwinning ‘pioneer’ at school. She developed
several successful eTwinning projects and she is in
charge of the school magazine “Barquinho de
Pape l”.
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It is a non-profit organization, defending and
promoting social, cultural, educational and
professional interests of the hearing impaired with
the purpose of integrating them into our society
and equalizing their chances. In august 2010, it had
31, 000 members.
This year, I have taught at a school for the deaf in
Sibiu, Romania. The pupils there have taught me at
least as much as I have taught them as it has been
an incredible experience. We may have a long way
to go, but I hope that we can integrate them into
our lives and our eTwinning projects in particular.
There are a few programs which are quite popular
among the deaf in Romania and worldwide and I
will try to make a brief presentation of those, as
well as of some tools that teachers for the deaf and
not only could use in their classrooms.
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