Getting Started with Described and Captioned Media Program

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By the Office of Special Education Programs and Described and Captioned Media Program

The U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) and Office of Educational Technology (OET) are celebrating Global Accessibility Awareness Day (GAAD) throughout May.

Yesterday, May 21, the OSERS Blog featured part one of three blogs about the OSEP-funded Described and Captioned Media Program (DCMP). The first blog provided an overview of DCMP, its leadership and the types of accessible educational services provided by DCMP. Today’s blog discusses the technology behind the services and setting up and using teacher and student accounts. The third blog will publish tomorrow and will address content partners, systemic change and future innovations in accessibility.

As a continuation from yesterday’s blog, what accessibility services does DCMP offer children and families who have disabilities?

Using DCMP for Teachers and Students

Student Accounts

K-12 students under 18 years of age are currently not eligible for their own DCMP membership. However, adult members can create Student Accounts for them. This provides a student with their own username and password, allowing them to access media in specified subjects or view specific titles assigned by the main account holder.

Each student account can be shared among educators and parents who have a DCMP account. Members can also create classes, or groups, of students to easily manage the assigning of media permissions. Student accounts are restricted DCMP accounts designed for direct use by students in the classroom or at home and are not linked to an email address.

Clips and Lessons

Clips and Lessons allow teachers to select portions of DCMP videos, create clips, and use those clips as stand-alone videos or as part of a lesson. A lesson can include clips, full videos, quizzes, text and user-submitted files.

On the clip creation screen, there’s a video preview window along with three possible methods for selecting a clip duration. All three interfaces can be used to accomplish the exact same goal, and teachers can use whichever method works best for a particular video. After creating clips, teachers can select the preferred audio language, captions, audio description and American Sign Language (ASL).

Technology

At the heart of the service is DCMP’s one-of-a-kind accessible media platform, which provides access to accessible content on the web, mobile devices, and television set-top-boxes. Over 18,000 educational videos, digital-first productions, and television episodes are made accessible through high-quality captioning, audio description, and ASL, and are made available for free for use with students with disabilities. These resources cover all subject areas for children who are early learners through students in high school.

Innovative Tools for Students and Teachers

DCMP’s entire platform is built to provide more than just videos. One noteworthy example is DCMP’s Artificial Intelligence (AI) Scene Description feature, a new tool for students who are blind and have low vision that can describe the visual elements of any frame within a paused video. Traditional audio description inserts additional narration into the “quiet parts” of a video, and efforts are made to avoid interfering with the original dialogue and other important sounds. DCMP used AI to solve the “impossible” problem of describing every visual element in a video for blind users.

Training Resources and Guidelines

DCMP developed guidelines for captioning and audio description through partnerships with the deaf and blind communities. Originally for internal use, DCMP’s Captioning Key and Description Key have been publicly available for several years and are now used worldwide as the standard for making educational videos accessible.

DCMP also supports families and educators by offering training and resources to help them use media effectively to enhance learning. All trainings are free. Learn more about DCMP’s eLearning resources.

QuickClasses

QuickClasses are facilitated, asynchronous, online classes for professionals working with students who are deaf, hard of hearing, blind, low vision, or deaf-blind. They are approved for Registry of Interpreters for the Deaf (RID) continuing education units, Academy for Certification of Vision Rehabilitation & Education Professionals (ACVREP) credit, and general professional development credit.

Workshops

Online Workshops have been approved for RID and ACVREP credit. Topics cover educational interpreting, learning about audio description, raising a visually impaired child and social skills.

Modules

Modules are self-paced, online trainings for learning about captioning, transition for students who are deaf and blind, becoming a notetaker and sight-reading braille.

Stay tuned for tomorrow’s blog, which will address content partners, systemic change and future innovations in accessibility.

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.