Accessible Education Services can support your captioning efforts. With adequate notice, we can search for a video for you, research good sources for specific types of captioned video, and may, in certain circumstances, be able to get video captioned for you or caption it ourselves.
Tips for Finding Captioned Videos
YouTube has many captioned videos. To find captioned videos, type in your subject (e.g., Paulo Freire), then type a comma and the letters "CC" (for closed captions), then click enter. In this example, you would have written "Paulo Freire, CC" in your search bar.
After performing your search and selecting a video, select the “Settings” button (found in the lower right hand corner of the video screen) and click on the "Subtitles/CC" line. This will allow you to see the different languages that can appear in the captions. If you want captions in English, select "English" - do NOT select "auto-translate." This will ensure that the captions you see are human generated, which will have fewer errors than auto-translated captions. Be sure to preview the video and captions to ensure the captioning is accurate. Do not use captions that are inaccurate, whether they be human- or computer-generated.
You can also do a Google search for a specific video title plus "captions," "captioned," or "subtitles" to find out if it is available as a captioned video.
We may be able to caption a video for you. Please contact Accessible Education Services if you have videos you would like to discuss
Captioning YouTube Videos
The National Center on Disability and Access to Education (NCDAE) provides a video tutorial and written instructions with pictures describing how to caption YouTube videos. If you already have a transcript of your video, NCDAE describes how to upload the transcript and align the timings of your transcript to your video. NCDAE also shows how you can have YouTube automatically create captions for your video, though the created captions will likely need extensive editing.
Captioning Zoom
There are a variety of options available for captioning or transcribing Zoom videos. Below is a list of options that are available.
Zoom Auto-generated Transcription: Included with Zoom. Zoom can provide an auto-generated transcription of a recorded meeting or class session, but it's not real time. You simply record the Zoom session and then run it through the transcription service and in about an hour, the transcription is available.
Zoom Captions: Zoom has an interface that allows a live transcriber (real person) to add captions real time. These will be available to all Zoom participants. There may be a charge for this service.
Third Party Real-time Auto-Generated Transcription & Captions, Integrated with Zoom: Many third party auto-transcribers can take the input to a microphone and translate it real-time, using a form of artificial intelligence. Some of these can be integrated with Zoom to make it easy to initiate the real-time transcription (e.g. Otter) or display the output in Zoom captions (e.g. Streamer). Both of these examples are not entirely seamless to use with Zoom, as they require some tweaking in each section. If the faculty member has a license/account, then the students can see the output without having a license/account.
Web Captioner: Free, only works in Chrome. Students can have Web Captioner running during a class session, and it will do a real-time transcription of all sound. The professor doesn't even need to know they have it on. This can work for remote students or in-class students who have a laptop and internet connection.
Zoom Auto-Generated Real-time Captions: Zoom will include providing their own version of real-time auto-generated captions enabled by the host. This is the ultimate solution because it can be turned on with a click of the mouse and it will display in the classroom and for remote students.
Facilitating Classroom Learning for Deaf/Hard of Hearing Students
Here are some bullet points of best practices for Deaf/Hard of Hearing students who use speech, residual hearing, and lip-reading and other visual cues rather than American Sign Language:
- Face the class, especially the D/HH student, when talking so the student can read your lips.
- Place students in a circle for class discussions whenever possible.
- Repeat questions and summarize comments from the class if the student cannot hear/see peers.
- When putting the class into small groups for discussion, try to isolate the D/HH student's group from too much ambient noise.
- Occasional discrete check-ins with the student to ensure the student is catching the information, especially during group discussions, would be much appreciated.