eKitabu KIX alignment workshop ushers in collaboration in early inclusive learning

GPE KIX project, Scaling inclusive ECCE and school readiness through sign language rich environments for deaf learners, held an alignment workshop over four days, from September 9 –12. This workshop marked the project's inception phase and served as a platform to initiate the research. It brought together consortium members from Royal Kentalis / Kentalis International Foundation (K-IF), Open Development & Education (OpenDevEd), and Busara Center for Behavioral Economics. 

The expertise of Georgine Auma, Director of eKitabu Studio in Kenyan Sign Language (KSL), and her team in their work with teachers on Digital story telling (DST) and sign-language-rich environment creations informed the participants on the research opportunities and challenges ahead in the GPE KIX project. Studio KSL is an eKitabu innovation that develops accessible digital teaching and learning materials in Kenyan KSL. 

Kentalis researcher longstanding experience in deaf education academic research also helped the team to finetune the common research approach and agree on the assessment instruments as well as the parameters to be used for the GPE KIX research.  

“We welcome the opportunity to contribute to international research on sign language-rich environment creation in schools, as that is the key to any further literacy development in young children who are deaf and/or depend on visual language input for their communication with others as well as their inner-speech development. We are glad to share the research experience from Royal Kentalis in the Netherlands and cooperate with the eKitabu teams from Kenya, Rwanda, and Malawi. Inclusive education for the deaf is extremely important in our day so that nobody is left behind in our fast-changing society and especially in matters of technology,” said Dr Maria Brons, Royal Kentalis. 

The team agreed on the development, and preparation of the Research Sign Language Assessment Tool (R-SLA) by Kentalis, to be trained to the eKitabu implementation team. Concrete plans were made on the Parents Awareness Workshop (PAW) module to align with the project’s objectives of parental involvement and action research for that matter. 

The workshop developed a repository of desk review documents to inform the research design. As part of the workshop activities, the team had the opportunity to visit Machakos School for the Deaf, where they observed classroom interactions and watched learners engage with Digital Story Time, gaining valuable insights into the educational environment in Kenya. 

Design-Based Implementation Research (DBIR) questions to guide the research process and support effective data collection will be finalised, in addition to the completion of the development of an evidence library to serve as a comprehensive resource for the project; this will consolidate key information, studies, and findings. 

“The alignment workshop highlighted the importance of collaboration in improving education for deaf and hard-of-hearing children. Working with eKitabu and Kentalis, we shared insights and tackled key challenges. While the project is complex, the meeting left me energized and confident that we’ll achieve more together.” Christopher Klune, Analyst, Open Development & Education, Ltd.