It`s July and many have started their summer vacation. For the DSL+-project this summer will be the last two months before the intervention starts in September. Before then half of the material is to be finalized and programed as an App. This means that there is a lot of activity going on in the research project group during the summer months.
The material for the
DSL+ app has been piloted again this spring.
Norwegian readers can read about the first piloting last year focusing
on motivation here. The piloting this spring had a broader aim. Amongst other
things we wanted to test the functionality of the tasks and the task structure.
This means both task content and the more operational aspects of solving the
tasks - e.g. does the audio instructions work as intended, is the organization
of visual items on the screen functional, to which extent is the tasks
intuitive, is the transition between stages in the program flowing etc. Two
children with Down syndrome and their teachers tested the material. After the trial
period interviews were carried out with the teachers. Both teachers have a long-term
experience working with children with Down syndrome. The two periods of
piloting this spring gave us a lot of useful information for final adjustments
of the material. It was also a great experience seeing the children enjoying
working with the DSL+-material! Norwegian readers can read more about the two
last piloting periods here:
The production of the
DSL+ app is done in collaboration with UniMedia, which is a lab at the Faculty
of Educational Sciences. The collaboration includes in addition to the
programming of the app itself also recordings of both audio and video. There is
a lot of material going into this app. Amongst other things there will be
recordings made of all the instructions, several sentences, over 300 single
words and articulation videos of a selection of the words. This work is
demanding in many ways. Oral speech rate, articulation, stress on syllables is some
of the factors that have been emphasized when choosing the items of the audio
recordings. In addition we have also emphasis variation in speakers; male and
female, adults and children, as well as different Norwegian dialects will be
present. For the articulation videos we also have to make sure that the
placement of e.g. the tongue and use of the lips is correct and that the mimics
are clear and at the same time look natural. In addition, the videos are
complicated to make since the close up captures every spot, pore and wrinkle in
the skin. It`s inevitable not to be self-aware in this situation. Although
these things are natural, it is also important to minimize factors that might
take focus from the articulation of the word.
Even though it`s
demanding, this work is also a lot of fun. Being here and doing the recordings
in a real studio means that we are finally IN PRODUCTION! And that’s really
exiting after years of preparations.
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| Siri from UniMedia is preparing Håkon for recordings - Some coverage is necessary when doing these veeeeeeeery close up articulation videos. |
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| A one of a kind summer job? Håkon is studying to be a Civil Engineer at NTNU in Trondheim. This summer he is working in the DSL+ project and as you can see he is given a range of tasks. I think it`s safe to say that this summer job is a bit out of the ordinary. |
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