Whether you’re deaf, hard of hearing, work in a quiet or noisy environment, or comprehend better with the written word, captioned videos benefit everyone.
Captioning is the text version of what is spoken in a video.
For readers of this blog, you know I’m a longtime advocate for video captions.
I’ve been writing about the benefits of video captions as well as video captioning success stories for years.
Which is why I’m excited about the third session in Knowbility’s Be A Digital Ally series.
My Experience with Video Captioning
When I worked on the web services team at the college, one of my responsibilities was captioning our short promotional videos.
In those days (late 2000’s / early 2010’s) there were limited options for captioning.
There was no YouTube to automatically create captions or automatically synchronize captions to the spoken word.
You created the captions manually, synchronized the timing yourself.
Eventually we learned that working from the script for the video made captioning a lot easier.
It still took a lot of time!
But we noticed an increase in viewing the captioned videos.
After captioning over a dozen videos manually, I researched other options and identified third-party vendors to do captioning for the college videos.
Eventually, YouTube added caption synchronization and automatic captions.
While I learned first-hand how to create captions with
- Correct formatting
- Speaker labels
- Specific line length
it’s not something everyone knows.
I’m glad Knowbility’s session will offer tips and advice about captioning.
Be A Digital Ally: Video Captioning
At their April 14, 2022 session, Be A Digital Ally: Video Captioning, Knowbility team member Jay McKay will provide an overview of video captioning.
McKay will discuss:
- Services and tools for captioning
- How to add captions manually
- Best practices for video content
- How to make your videos accessible to your audience
The session is Thursday, April 14, 2022 from 6pm to 7pm Eastern Daylight Time (converter for your time zone).
While the session is free (consider a donation to support Knowbility), pre-registration is required.
Speaker Biography
Jay McKay is Director of Community at Knowbility.
She serves as serves as an advisory member for the National Center for Accessible Educational Materials, the Center on Inclusive Technology & Educational Systems, and the State Leaders of Assistive Technology in Education.
Previously she worked as a music therapist and an assistive technology specialist.
McKay has a Master of Science in Assistive Technology and Human Services from California State University Northridge.
Join Me!
I’m looking forward to attending Knowbility’s video captioning session. While I’m familiar with video captioning, I always learn something new when I attend Knowbility’s sessions.
As they did in previous Be A Digital Ally sessions, Knowbility will be using Zoom for the session.
