New ASL tutorial expands creative pathways for deaf and hard of hearing Scratchers
By Valerie I
Nadmi Casiano, a Program Lead at Deaf Kids Code, has taught creative coding to countless deaf and hard-of-hearing learners across the United States. In 40 minutes, she uses Scratch as a tool to teach students the basics of coding. For some students, this introduction ignites a spark that has the power to surprise even seasoned educators like Casiano.
After one session, a student approached Casiano and told her that he needed more time to finish his project. Casiano assured him that he could continue working in Scratch from home.
The next day, the student was excited to show Casiano his finished project. She was surprised to learn that the student incorporated skill sets that were far more elaborate than the ones she had taught in class. “When he showed it to me, I was just flabbergasted,” she says. “I was really shocked. My jaw was on the floor…He was able to tell a story himself, and I didn’t even teach him that.”
The student’s teacher told Casiano he’d been struggling in school and “almost wanted to give up.” But the opportunity to express himself with code sparked a new passion for learning.
“These students, they have so much passion, they’re so motivated to be leaders,” says Casiano. “This is what we want. We want to provide an enriched learning environment that inspires future leaders…We want to empower the students themselves.”
At Scratch, we believe dialogue and understanding are foundational pillars to creating equitable opportunities. As we continue to evolve as an independent organization, community engagement remains at the forefront of our work. We understand that intercultural competence is critical to fostering an inclusive online community that engages all children in thinking creatively, regardless of their socioeconomic class, gender, beliefs, or abilities. To elevate this, we launched the Scratch Education Collaborative (SEC), a cohort of organizations worldwide with a shared passion for amplifying voices from historically marginalized communities. The SEC reinforces and deepens our work of making creative computing more accessible to all.
The Scratch Education Collaborative was founded on the belief that equitable creative coding is rooted in individual, collective, and institutional fairness inclusive of diverse voices and perspectives. The SEC believes that partnership is a critical building block in achieving this work and yields to perspectives from SEC partners to eliminate the barriers in access and engagement. This year, the SEC worked with 41 organizations across the United States, Europe, the Asian Pacific region, South America, and North America.
“We want to provide an enriched learning environment that inspires future leaders…We want to empower the students themselves.”
Deaf Kids Code is part of the SEC’s inaugural cohort and views the digital age as the great equalizer that can bridge economic and social gaps among deaf children and adults. Founder Shireen Hafeez says she was inspired to start Deaf Kids Code in response to her son’s diagnosis. Navigating this journey underscored the opportunity and employment disparities that her son and children like him would likely face. Hafeez’s determination to eliminate such barriers helped define the groundwork for what Deaf Kids Code is today.
“If it wasn’t for him and his diagnosis, Deaf Kids Code would not exist,” she says. “Having no language at the age of four, having to fight through the system in numerous ways, further exacerbates the oppression of disenfranchised communities. Our story is the embodiment of what that is.”
Today, Deaf Kids Code provides free resources and programming to thousands of deaf children, teachers, and organizations across the globe. Their goal is to inspire students’ interest in developing vocational life skills and training by increasing their exposure to technology, computer science, and design thinking skills.
Hafeez describes the organization’s success as a herculean feat that requires immeasurable grit and perseverance from her team. Yet despite the intensity of the work, Hafeez imagines even more possibilities for her learners and says it starts with people who realize their potential. “We want people to partner with us that have a growth mindset, that believe that our population is a top talent,” she says. “We want to work with people who want to be part of elevating access and increasing opportunities.”
Hafeez says that she was led to her partnership with the SEC by fate. “I was on Twitter, and Scratch had this posting about a partnership. I submitted an email to the team saying, ‘Hey, I have some ideas that can make Scratch a more useful tool to deaf educators and students.’”
Weeks later, Hafeez began brainstorming with the Scratch Team about what accessibility for deaf Scratchers could look like. After thoughtful planning, Hafeez and two Deaf Kids Code student ambassadors filmed Scratch’s first American Sign Language tutorial in Philadelphia. The video is a 13-minute remake of our original “Getting Started with Scratch’’ tutorial that details how to navigate the Scratch platform.
Scratch historically employed closed captioning on videos as a primary tool to create access for deaf and hard-of-hearing users. While journeying through the production of the ASL tutorial, our team studied under the experts at Deaf Kids Code to understand the intricate nuances that help shape effective communication within the deaf community. Throughout this process, we learned that closed captioning could pose additional challenges for users who have not had exposure to high-level language. This underscored the importance of working with and learning from experts in the communities we hope to reach with Scratch.
Program lead Casiano is an experienced aerospace engineer and a deaf woman of color. She says the lack of representation in STEAM created significant challenges throughout her career.
“When I started learning computer engineering coding with MATLAB, it was a struggle for me because I didn’t have tutoring from another deaf person,” she says. “I think if it was a deaf tutor to a deaf student, I would’ve made the connection better, and everything would have become more clear.”
Casiano believes that Scratch has the unique capability to meet deaf learners like herself by bridging concepts with language to create clearer pathways for communication.
She says that the most valuable partnerships begin with shared understanding. “I would say that the best way to support this community is to involve their voices in order to understand what the deaf community needs,” she says. “That’s the key thing, the most important thing, is to continually work with the deaf community, have them engage more, ask them questions.”
Scratch Team member Zoë Bentley worked on the ASL tutorial as a Digital Media Specialist and head of the Scratch Accessibility Committee. Bentley, who herself is visually impaired, says the experience showed her the fundamental difference between designing content for a community and collaborating with a community at the center to meet their needs.
“There is a huge difference between a video being accessible with something like closed captions and being made with disabled people at the center of the process,” she says. “I really appreciate the way that the SEC and Deaf Kids Code saw a need and made a tutorial that directly addressed it. Now millions of Scratchers can use the tutorial, and the script was made with English language learners in mind, too.”
Hafeez echoes this sentiment and says, “Being a good ally is a willingness to bend towards being accessible and really putting weight on the recommendations of organizations like mine … Asking, ‘What is it that we can do?’ and really letting us take the reins and go for it, with very little to no resistance; that is a very rare thing.”
The SEC is excited to continue this trajectory with our partners to expand our impact and perspective. We understand that the journey towards accessible creative coding begins with collaboration. If you share our vision to make creative coding more accessible, we want to learn from you. The 2022 Scratch Education Collaborative application is now live, and we hope you apply to join!
