Sign language tutor — Rebuilding and optimizing

In Macedonia there are around 6000 deaf people [4] and according to the National association of deaf and hard of hearing of Macedonia, this represents only 0.3% of the population. Because of this low percentage the community of deaf and hard of hearing feels very isolated and stigmatized. Only one television channel (the national channel) offers once a day a Macedonian Sign Language (MSL) interpreted news. Moreover, there are only two schools in Macedonia that offer education to deaf children. For that reason, when a new deaf child is born by non-deaf parents, the learning of the sign language represents a real challenge that affects the whole family. This is the reason why we created the sign tutor - to help this community and to introduce the whole family (the deaf children and the non-deaf parents) with the Macedonian sign language in an easy and entertaining way, with interesting animations and games. This paper will give an overview of the MSL and the general recommendation for using IT tools in sign language learning. The project created as a result of the research - the Sign tutor will be resented, along with the results and comments received after promoting this project. The paper also elaborates on current upgrades and optimizations to this project, in order to make it more available.