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Theme:
- Supporting Multilingual Children Who are Deaf or Hard of Hearing (DHH)
Tech Tool of the Month
Articles:
- Resource Spotlight: Support for Spanish-Speaking Families
- Resource Spotlight: Accessible and Bilingual Educational Videos
News from RMTC-DHH:
- TA-Live!
- Tea with the Teachers
- Coffee with the Contacts
Teacher Toolkit:
- Assessment Tools page
- Loan Library Resources
Did You Know?
- Florida ASL Festival IV in West Palm Beach
- Florida American Sign Language Festival in St Augustine
- Tampa Bay Lightning
- AG Bell Student Scholarships – Apply Now!
Upcoming Events
- 1/7/26: TA-Live! Supporting Multilingual Children who are DHH
- 1/11/26-1/14/26: The Future of Education Technology Conference (FETC)
- 1/15/26-1/18/26: Center for Autism and Related Disabilities (CARD) Conference
- 1/21/26: Tea with the Teachers
- 1/27/26-1/31/26: Assistive Technology Industry Association (ATIA) Conference
- 2/11/26: TA-Live! Working with an Interpreter
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In this month's Tech Notes, our TA-Live! webinar series focuses on supporting multilingual children who are deaf or hard of hearing (DHH). We are pleased to welcome Dr. Alliete Alfano and Daniela Berrios Reyes, who will share best practices for working with bilingual children who are DHH, explore ongoing informal assessment tools, and discuss strategies for family engagement to support bilingual language development. This session offers practical guidance for educators and professionals committed to fostering language development across multiple languages. | | | | |
NotebookLM
NotebookLM is an artificial intelligence (AI)-powered research and note-taking tool developed by Google. It allows educators to upload documents, PDFs, and notes, then uses AI to help summarize, organize, and generate insights from those materials. Think of it as your personal research assistant that makes planning and professional learning more efficient.
Why it’s great for educators:
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Smart summaries: Quickly condense long documents into clear, concise summaries.
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Context-aware answers: Ask questions about your uploaded materials and get accurate, relevant responses.
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Organized research: Keep lesson resources, articles, and notes in one place for easy access.
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Privacy-conscious: Designed with strong security measures and no unnecessary data collection.
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Free to use: NotebookLM is currently available at no cost for educators.
Bonus for students who are deaf or hard of hearing:
NotebookLM helps teachers create accessible, differentiated materials that align with the Florida Expanded Skills Standards. By summarizing complex texts into clear, concise language, educators can provide content that is easier to pair with American Sign Language (ASL) glossaries, captioned videos, and visual supports. Teachers can organize multiple sources into one notebook for streamlined lesson planning, share summaries with interpreters and team members for consistent instruction, and even synthesize research into quick-reference guides for professional development. This tool saves time while ensuring that instructional materials meet the unique communication and access needs of students who are deaf or hard of hearing.
| | Resource Spotlight: Support for Spanish-Speaking Families | | The National Center on Deafblindness offers a comprehensive resource page designed specifically for families who speak Spanish. This collection provides practical learning materials, guidance on educational strategies, and tools to assist families in supporting children who are deafblind. The resources address communication needs, family engagement, and ways to foster learning at home, all in the family’s preferred language. By offering information in Spanish, the site helps ensure that families can access critical support without language barriers. | | Resource Spotlight: Accessible and Bilingual Educational Videos | The Described and Captioned Media Program (DCMP) offers a wide range of educational videos that are fully accessible and available in both English and Spanish. These videos include captions, audio descriptions, and some are interpreted in ASL, ensuring that students who are deaf, hard of hearing, blind, or visually impaired can engage with high-quality educational content. The bilingual options make it easier for multilingual families to support learning at home and in the classroom. | | |
Please join RMTC-DHH for TA-Live! The sessions will be recorded for future viewing.
Sessions include:
When?
The next TA-Live! session will be January 7, from 2:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. ET (1:00 p.m. to 2:00 p.m. CT).
| This month’s discussion is Supporting Multilingual Children who are DHH. We will be joined by Dr. Alliete Alfano and Daniela Berrios Reyes. Do you have questions you would like to submit before the discussion session for our guest speaker? Please fill out this form. | | | |
Please join RMTC-DHH for the 2025-2026 kickoff session of Tea with the Teachers, a virtual collaborative learning community (VCLC). Participants are encouraged to add questions/topics for discussion using the Tea with the Teachers Collaborative Notes. The sessions will not be recorded and transcripts will not be available after the event.
When?
Date(s): 1/21/26; 4/1/26; 5/6/26
Time(s): 9:00 a.m. - 10:00 a.m. EST (8:00 a.m. - 9:00 a.m. CST)
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Please join RMTC-DHH for Coffee with the Contacts, a VCLC designed for DHH program leads and contacts or their designees. Participants are encouraged to pose questions throughout the year on the topic submission form found on the DHH Contacts webpage. The sessions will not be recorded and transcripts will not be available after the event.
When?
Date(s): 2/4/26; 4/8/26
Time(s): 9:00 a.m. - 11:00 a.m. EST (8:00 a.m. - 10:00 a.m. CST)
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The RMTC-DHH Assessment Tools page features a curated list of assessments commonly used with students who are deaf or hard of hearing, including notes on select tools that are available in other languages to support multilingual students. | | | | | | Resources from the RMTC-DHH Media and Materials Loan Library: | |
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This month, we’re highlighting materials that support working with multilingual students who are DHH. RMTC-DHH’s Media & Materials Loan Library offers captioned and signed videos, supplemental curricular resources, and even assessments and protocols to support instruction and student progress.
We even cover shipping both ways!
📘 Explore the featured materials here:
NTC’s Multilingual Dictionary of ASL
Catalog Number: 1811
This comprehensive dictionary provides the essential vocabulary for communicating with speakers of other languages through American Sign Language. The 2,500 chosen entry words appear in 13 of the world’s major languages and include illustrations in American Sign Language.
You can also browse the full collection anytime in our Loan Library Catalog:
| *Florida stakeholders can borrow these and many other resources from RMTC-DHH's Media and Materials Loan Library, for FREE. Each material comes with a return label, making even the shipping at no charge to the borrower. | | | | Florida ASL Festival IV in West Palm Beach | | Visit Florida ASL Festival and enjoy a midway featuring over 60 booth vendors, ASLingo games, food, music and entertainment, booth exhibitions and competitive exhibits, and so much more. Come celebrate the community and make lifelong memories with your family and friends! | | |
Location & Time: Benchmark International Arena – Saturday, March 28
Join us for an exciting night of hockey and community awareness!
Special Offer: $10 from each ticket purchased through this promotion benefits Deaf & Hard of Hearing Services of Florida, supporting programs and advocacy statewide.
Don’t miss this celebration of communication and community.
| | AG Bell Student Scholarships – Apply Now! | | |
AG Bell is offering scholarships for the 2026 AG Bell Global LSL Symposium
Symposium: AG Bell Global Listening and Spoken Language Symposium in Washington, D.C., June 4–6, 2026.
Deadline: Friday, January 30, 2026
Eligible students: College/university students in audiology, speech-language pathology, or deaf education (listening and spoken language focus).
Benefits:
- Quick application (under 5 minutes)
- FREE one-year AG Bell student membership
- Networking with global hearing health professionals
- Access to extended resources
| | RMTC-DHH provides Tech Notes as a free resource to teachers, professionals, and families around the state in order to pass along potentially useful information and expand the knowledge and opportunities available to educators and families of children who are deaf/hard of hearing. This email was funded by the Florida Department of Education Bureau of Exceptional Education and Student Services through federal assistance under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), Part B funds and through an agreement with the Florida School for the Deaf and the Blind. The information included does not reflect any specific endorsement by any parties involved. | | | | |
