The adaptability of an open source learning management system for deaf children in Jordan

Abstract

E-learning is a useful tool that has contributed in facilitating education for people around the globe. There is a need to make e-learning available to deaf people, deaf people facing difficulties in learning, for example, when a lecturer demonstrates on the black board, they usually face the wall, making lip-reading impossible. Moreover, unless they have a note-taker, they will not be able to write down the necessary information and watch the lecturer/interpreter/lip-speaker at the same time. Deaf children in Jordan are not far from this. They face even more problems because of the lack of educational infrastructure, resources and specialist provision. In this paper, with the aim of finding the feasibility of using current open source Learning Management Systems (LMS) we evaluated four open source LMS and recommended one of them as most adaptable for deaf children in Jordan. This recommendation came from testing the evaluated LMS against the developed key requirement. These developed key requirements are based on literature; the guidelines of California department of education, these guidelines contain suggestions to be used in classifying, assessing, planning, and providing appropriate educational services to all children who are deaf or hard of hearing. Additionally, we used some aspects from the LMS evaluation tool user guide issue 1.2. The evaluation of process involved examining factors and aspects related to LMS. During the evaluation of four open source LMS, we noticed the main factors that affect the adaptation such as language support, hardware/software specifications, RDBMS, LMS standards & specifications compliance, administrative tools, assessment tools, collaboration and communications tools, and customization of LMS. By the end of this evaluation, we found that the most suitable open source e-learning environment and LMS to be utilised to deaf children needs was LMS. Therefore Moodle LMS is adapted to the deaf children in Jordan.