Simon (admin)

We've had a couple of queries about how to enable push notifications on these forums so that you are notified about replies, and posts you're following, in your browser or device even if you don't have the page open.

These notifications can be enabled within your settings: https://www.signlanguageforum.com/bsl/notifications/options/

Hello Lexi,

You might find the fingerspelling game useful for this if you haven't already seen it: https://www.signlanguageforum.com/bsl/fingerspelling/fingerspelling-game/

This game will spell random words to you and you have to see how many you can get right in 2 minutes.  You can slow it down or speed it up if you wish.

Good luck 🙂

Hello Daisy,

The BSL video chat should work on most laptops without any additional software.  If you are still having difficulty please can you email a screenshot of what you are seeing to [email protected] ? Thanks.

Hello Lauren - your login details were emailed to you when you enrolled on the course - sorry if they didn't arrive. If you haven't received them please can you email [email protected] for assistance.

Hello @libby jo - Happy to help.  What are you trying to work out?

British Sign Language GCSE may be introduced during this Parliament after legal action threatened.

Some great news of progress towards a GCSE in British Sign Language... Well done to Daniel Jillings for campaigning on this.

Read more on TES: https://www.tes.com/news/government-u-turn-over-sign-language-gcse

We have added a topic to these forums where you can post if you are looking for, or are offering, any BSL or related job vacancies: https://www.signlanguageforum.com/bsl/forum/19-job-vacancies/

Hello @RubyBC.  This should be working again in Firefox now - please let me know if it is working for you.

Over the past few days we have upgraded the video recording software used on this site.  Video recording should now be a smooth process and can be used on desktop and mobile devices.  To record a video in a post just press the red button below the text input box when you are creating a topic or replying to a post.

Display the BSL Used Here logo so that your visitors or customers know that you are able to offer services in British Sign Language or that there is an interpreter available.  You can find out more about this by visiting:

https://www.signlanguageforum.com/bsl/sign-language-used-here/logo/ 

Thanks @Peter Exeter - that's great feedback.

Can you let me know which text you are referring to?  Do you mean the main text of the posts?

We have updated the British Sign Language video chat rooms today and you will now notice a big improvement in the quality and ease of use.

You can find the video chat rooms here.

To get started you can join an existing room, or create your own room.

This is a great resource for chatting with others in BSL as well as a place for learners to meet up with their classmates between lessons to get some practice in.

An interesting video sent to us by Ear Science Institute Australia.

🔊 Hearing Loss Simulator watch with sound 🔊 
Hearing loss is one of the world's fastest growing conditions and experts predict 1 in 4 people will have hearing loss by 2050. Share this video to show people what hearing loss sounds like.

Hello @Lesley Silvester - it appears that your webcam doesn't support the frame rate of recording (the number of still images it takes per second) that we were using by default.  I have reduced this to a more standard setting and I think that may solve the issue that you had - let me know if you get a chance to try it again.

- EDIT: Further investigation suggests that this isn't the case -the frame rate was already correct.  Did you plug your webcam in after you had opened the recording window?  The video recorder couldn't see your webcam so it could be that if you plugged it in just before recording this was too late.

Hello @KaleLing  - I'll take a look at the server too to see if we can tweak the settings to improve the quality a little.

You do not need to wait when you see the '2 minute' notice - you can still submit your post and the video will appear there once it has been processed.

@Lesley Silvester - ok, thanks.  Tomorrow I will take a look at the logs on the server and see if they tell me what the problem was.  I'll let you know.

Hello @Lesley Silvester - thanks for letting us know that you couldn't get this working.

We ran a security update to the server yesterday morning and it ended up blocking the connection for video recording (oops!).  We have updated the firewall settings now and you should be able to get it working.  Sorry about that.

If you still have difficulty with it please let me know.

Hello @Jay Claire - welcome!  I hope you enjoy the site and find it useful.  Let us know if there is anything that you can think of that would be a useful addition to the forums or chat rooms. 

Hello @Lesley Silvester - welcome to the forums!  Good luck with your assessments!

Feel free to share your presentation with the forum here - everyone would be glad to help (we are all friendly here!) - you can record a video directly into your post using the red video record button when you create a forum post.  The button looks like this: 

Good luck!

Hello @Judy Joinson - Welcome to the website!  Good luck with learning BSL!  If you have any ideas new features that might improve your experience here please let us know. 

After the recent re-design of these forums we are working hard to get them up and running to make them as useful to you as possible.

Please let us know what features you would like to see included on this site and what ideas you have for changes that we could make to improve usability.

I look forward to hearing from you

You can now hold private text or video conversations with other members of this website.

To get started click on the 'Chats' button at the bottom right of the page.

Hello @MissJennyNg, @h.n.jootna & everyone.  Since the weekend we have been working very hard to smooth out some of the bugs that you experienced in the video chat rooms last weekend.  I'm really pleased to say that these should all be fixed!  Please give it a go and let me know if you have any problems. Click Here 

Hello @KaleLing - welcome!  It's great to have an overseas signer using these forums - I hope you learn some BSL and are able to offer advice.

We will be launching an ASL version of this site very soon so you will be able to share some of your ASL skills too.

Hello both - are you able to let me know what web browser you are using and if you are on Windows, or Mac (or something else?) - so that we can do a bit of testing and try to figure out why you weren't able to connect to each other.  Thanks