Conteúdos digitais em tempo de pandemia da covid-19 no contexto da educação de surdos

Abstract

This dissertation was carried out at the Postgraduate Program in Education at the Federal University of Santa Maria, in the Special Education, Inclusion and Difference Research Line, and was concerned with developing a study to map the content that was produced and made available on digital platforms, for remote teaching of deaf students, in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic. To respond to this investigative statement, three specific objectives were constructed: (a) to identify content aimed at deaf education available on digital platforms in times of pandemic; (b) to analyze the discursive recurrences produced in digital content aimed at deaf education and (c) to understand the remote teaching scenario in the context of deaf education. The theoretical-methodological map of the investigation was drawn from the fields of Deaf Studies and Cultural Studies in Education, aligned with post-structuralist discussions. These theoretical fields allowed us to understand deafness as a political and cultural difference, in which a complex discursive network is implicated, ranging from the defence of a single, essentialized culture, taking the centrality of sign language as a reference, to notions of culture that involve more hybrid, multiple scenarios that produce and narrate ways of representing deafness. The materiality of the research included content and materials developed by researchers, teachers and other professionals involved in deaf education, which circulated on digital platforms in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. The materials selected were: "Casa Libras Project", coordinated by the Research Group on Deaf Education, Subjectivities and Differences (GPEDi/USFCar); "Lives", "conversation circles" and "events" developed by the Interinstitutional Research Group on Deaf Education (GIPES/UFRGS); "Ebooks" produced with specific content on remote teaching for deaf students, available on the platform of Editora PEDRO & JOÃO, published from 2020 to 2022. From this set of data, two analytical categories emerged: questions about the visual resources present in digital content aimed at deaf students in the context of remote education and aspects of information content about the pandemic and linguistic accessibility. In this scenario, it was possible to understand that these contents were important visual tools that kept students and teachers connected to the cultural marks of deaf education. In other words, by presenting information, content and teaching materials available on digital media, the marks of visuality took center stage in the pedagogical scene in the context of remote teaching. Another contribution I would highlight was the connection that was established between the materials and content produced with the pedagogical work proposals, as they mobilized visual resources in order to guarantee linguistic accessibility for deaf students. From this, it was possible to infer that teachers and students in the field of deaf education have challenged themselves to build other possibilities for pedagogical relationships by getting closer to virtual platforms and their content. Bilingual education based on visual pedagogy recognizes diversity, providing students with a space where their identities and linguistic and cultural differences can be recognized. The need to give deaf people access to knowledge and information through visual resources, made available in Libras, heralds the idea that it is not enough just to expose deaf people to technologies with the intention of social inclusion, but also to make resources available in more appropriate and accessible digital environments.