{"id":213,"date":"2026-09-14T00:11:09","date_gmt":"2026-09-14T07:11:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru325\/?p=213"},"modified":"2026-09-17T23:10:10","modified_gmt":"2026-09-18T06:10:10","slug":"assignment-1-people-in-the-field-melissa-malzkuhn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru325\/assignment-1-people-in-the-field-melissa-malzkuhn\/","title":{"rendered":"Assignment 1 | People in the field: MELISSA MALZKUHN"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Melissa Malzkuhn (n.d.) describes herself as \u201ca Deaf creative and product leader, narrative strategist, and education innovator\u2026[who] builds ecosystems\u201d (para. 1). She is a storyteller through and through and through as a third-generation Deaf person; she was born into a family where her parents and grandparents are also Deaf. In her RIT | NTID ASL Lecture<\/a> within the first three minutes Melissa introduces herself and shows a short clip of her Deaf grandfather\u2019s literary competition entry, an American Sign Language (ASL) translation of Lewis Carroll\u2019s \u201cJabberwocky\u201d, which is amusing as Melissa herself points out. It\u2019s amusing because written English does not translate easily to ASL so his creative and exuberant personality shines through his performance as he uses his body to describe the weird and wonderous characters in Carroll\u2019s poem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I know first-hand (pun intended!) how it\u2019s challenging to translate spoken, or written, English into ASL because I am a Child of Deaf Adults (CODA) and have been translating my whole life\u2026navigating life between Hearing and Deaf cultures. Deaf culture is steeped in storytelling, and technology has the capacity to strengthen or weaken Deaf connection, community, and culture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

World Federation of the Deaf (WFD, n.d.) shared data gathered from the World Health Organization that there is approximately \u201c70 million deaf people belong to signing deaf communities\u201d (para. 1), but like many marginalized languages, it takes effort and work to ensure the lineage of the language and culture continues.    <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Melissa works at Gallaudet University<\/a>, a unique bilingual institute where it holds historical, contemporary, and enduring significance. She is the founder and director of Gallaudet\u2019s Motion Light Lab<\/a> and co-director of Gallaudet\u2019s Visual Language and Visual Learning (VL2) center that holds important research resources for parents and educators alike. Through these two, and many more initiatives, she shines a light on Deaf culture and education.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

More of Melissa Malzkuhn\u2019s work:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

VL2 Research Briefs<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The ASL App<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a>Computers & Education: X Reality 4 (2024) 100059<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

References<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Malzkuhn, M. (n.d.). Melissa Malzkuhn<\/em>. https:\/\/mezmalz.com\/<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

World Federation of the Deaf. (n.d.). Frequently asked questions<\/em>. https:\/\/wfdeaf.org\/contact\/faqs\/<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Melissa Malzkuhn (n.d.) describes herself as \u201ca Deaf creative and product leader, narrative strategist, and education innovator\u2026[who] builds ecosystems\u201d (para. 1). She is a storyteller through and through and through as a third-generation Deaf person; she was born into a family where her parents and grandparents are also Deaf. In her RIT | NTID ASL […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":345,"featured_media":225,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-213","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lrnt523"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru325\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru325\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru325\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru325\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/345"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru325\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=213"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru325\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":217,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru325\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213\/revisions\/217"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru325\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/225"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru325\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=213"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru325\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=213"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru325\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=213"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}