The Irish Deaf Society

Overview of Outcomes

• Partnership approach to determine how we could overcome specific challenges
• Support teaching for better accessibility for teachers and students
• Easier to deliver lessons through more visual means

Introduction

We partnered with the Irish Deaf Society to create a more interactive and accessible environment. We wanted to create learning spaces accessible to both Deaf educators and students to achieve this goal.

The Irish Deaf Society’s Story

The Irish Deaf Society seeks to achieve and promote the Equality and Rights of Deaf people in Ireland. Their mission is to empower and mobilise the Deaf community in their day to day lives and beyond.

With an awareness of their identity and their rights as individuals, Deaf people in Ireland are enabled to celebrate their culture and continue to ensure the upholding of Irish Sign Language. This helps break down the barriers of discrimination and promote awareness to those outside of the community.

The Opportunity The Irish Deaf Society Saw

The Irish Deaf Society are always seeking tools that will aid their members to deliver more accessible teaching and learning.

They had the opportunity to update some of their classrooms, and create a more user-friendly environment. This was a chance to create a space that would allow students to collaborate and really benefit and enhance how teachers deliver lessons.

Why The Irish Deaf Society Chose Smarter Surfaces

They immediately jumped at the opportunity to create more visual classrooms, partnering with Smarter Surfaces to deliver this. The ability to teach a whole lesson on the board, using interactive formats too, would make it easier to explain all aspects of a lesson.

Another key consideration was having enough space for everyone in a class to interact at the board. A visual means to carry out collaborative breakout sessions where students could focus on a problem on the board would really add to their lessons.

How They Used Smart Whiteboard Paint

One example of how our products were used effectively was in Johnny Corcoran’s lessons, a graphic design teacher from The Irish Deaf Society.

“By installing Smart Whiteboard Paint and Smart Whiteboard Wallpaper – Low Sheen (Whiteboard & Projection), suddenly aspects of my lessons that were difficult to explain to students became really easy. With the image projected onto a writable surface I can deliver my course in a visual way. This has made it much easier for me and my students.”

The Result

We worked with the teachers in The Irish Deaf Society to understand what they needed and delivered a solution to overcome these specific challenges.

This resulted in a more accessible environment for teachers and students making it easier to deliver lessons through more visual means.

There’s no limit to the wall space that can be covered by Smarter Surfaces’ products. We installed Smart Whiteboard Paint and Smart Whiteboard Wallpaper – Low Sheen on entire walls. This allowed students to take a greater part in lessons as they had greater means to visually collaborate with one another.

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