An EKU professor is playing a key role in a national effort to enhance the use of technology by teachers of the deaf and hard of hearing.

Dr. Karen Dilka, a special education professor at EKU, and Dr. Harold Johnson, a special education professor at Kent University, are co-directors of a $2.1 million federally-funded grant from the U.S. Department of Education. The three-year grant was awarded to the Association of College Educators of the Deaf and Hard of Hearing, of which Dilka is a past president.

EKU offers the Commonwealth's only program, and one of only 72 nationwide, that prepares teachers for the deaf and hard of hearing.

"This grant will support efforts by teacher preparation programs to provide opportunities for pre-service teachers of the deaf and hard-of-hearing to develop and refine their skills in using modern learning technologies," said Dilka, who also serves as president of the Council on Education of the Deaf. "Ultimately, this will improve education for deaf and hard of hearing children."

As co-director, Dilka will coordinate the efforts of faculty members from colleges and universities nationwide to network together, determine best practices for infusing technology into their curricula, create technology-enhanced products to use in their classrooms, and give future teachers of the deaf and hard of hearing hands-on experience in the implementation of software and multimedia tools.

"The major problem of deafness," Johnson said, "is not too little hearing, but too much interpersonal and informational isolation. The major problem of teacher preparation if not too little innovation, but too much of a gap or difference in the day-to-day instructional realities of college professors and their K-12 colleagues. This grant will help to bridge that divide through the use of collaborative, technologically intensive, pre-service teacher-centered course activities."

Dilka said she hopes to enlist additional support from corporate sponsors that might advance the use of technology by teachers of the deaf and hard of hearing.

"Our far-reaching goal," she said, "is to go international with this."

About 75 students are enrolled in EKU's four-year Deaf and Hard of Hearing teacher preparation program. For more information about the program, call 859-622-4442.

Contact: Dr. Dilka at 859-622-1043.