Closed Captioning Offers Accessibility For Online Learning

The world is switching to online communication and learning. As the global pandemic continues, classrooms and meetings are moving to online platforms. One of the most popular online platforms for video conferencing is Zoom. But video conferencing can be difficult for those with hearing loss or for whom English is a second language. How can we make sure it is accessible for everyone?

One of the ways to do that is through using live closed captioning. This ensures that participants can see captions of what is being said in live time. While closed captioning is commonly used for previously recorded videos and for TV, Live captioning is fairly new and many people may not be familiar with it. Here are some ways to use it.

Zoom

Zoom offers two ways to use closed captioning. The host can assign someone to type the captions or type themselves. Or a third party closed captioning service can be used. In order to use closed captioning for Zoom, you need to be using Zoom Desktop Client, Zoom Mobile App for Android or iOS, Zoom Rooms for Conference Rooms for Windows, or Zoom Rooms Controller for Android or iOS. Only Zoom Desktop Client allows you to manually enter the Closed Captioning. All other formats only allow you to view closed captioning.

You will first need to make sure the closed captioning is enabled. There are three options: You can sign in through the Zoom account, you can sign in as a group manager or you can sign in as a User in order to enable captions for your own personal use.

If you are hosting the meeting, you first click on Closed Caption. Then you have the option of either assigning someone to type, typing the captions yourself or using a third party Closed Captioning Service. If you opt to assign someone to type (or you choose to do it yourself), a closed captioning box will open up and you will manually enter captions in that box. Only one person can be assigned to enter the captions, whether that is yourself or another participant.

If you choose to use a third party service, you will need to copy the API token and past it in the third party Closed Captioning tool. The third party software must support Zoom's REST API. Closed captioning data will arrive in a series of posts. Each meeting will have a special URL and the URL of the post will specify the meeting that the captions are associated with (so you don't have captions from someone else's meeting). Every POST must have a sequence attached to its URL. In addition, it must also specify the language and ISO country code. All content must be in plain text format. In addition, a timestamp value is present in the POST return body and corresponds to the time the POST was processed and can be used to correct the local clock on a client driving the server which ensures that the captions are delivered in a timely manner and there is no lag in the captions.

Live Transcription Third Party Services

While there are numerous third party captioning services, most are not free. Three free options are Google's Live Transcribe, Google Slides Live (or Microsoft Power Point Closed Captioning), or Otter ai.

Google Live Transcribe is an app for Android that uses the phone's microphone to create real-time captions on the phone. It uses cloud-based speech recognition technology to display spoken words on the phone screen. Live Transcribe was created by Chet Gnegy, a research scientist at Google, who worked with Dimitri Kanevsky, a Deaf research scientist who also worked at Google and helped create CART, the preliminary real-time captions that requires a captioner to come into a classroom or meeting and create a transcription of real-time dialogue. Chet Gnegy saw how Dimitri struggled using CART and wanted to create an app that would help him easily communicate with loved ones and people he meets in his day-to-day interactions. Now his app is helping Deaf and hard of hearing people around the world.

Google Live Transcribe can be connected to the Zoom call through Bluetooth and deliver captions from the meeting or classroom on a phone screen. The app is free and is a viable option for those who are having difficulty hearing to obtain captions for their online video conferencing.

Another option is Google Slides Live. When you present using Google slides, you simply click the closed captioning button to enable captions. Then keep your laptop near you as you present and your laptop's microphone will bring up captions on the bottom of the screen automatically. The closed captioning can be enabled even with using a single slide or a blank slide. While the captions are only about 80 to 85% accurate, they can provide an extra form of assistance to someone who might otherwise struggle to hear what is being said. This can be connected with Zoom or another video conferencing app.

Otter is an app for Android and iOS as well as a web interface. It is a voice recorder that offers automatic transcription and designed to capture conversations between multiple people. In order to use the app, you only have to push record. The voice conversation is recorder and transcribed live. The recording can also be shared with others right from the app. No need to have a third party platform for sharing. The company creating Otter is called AISense and uses software to create the voice recognition program. AISense uses technology in Otter called diarization to identify individual speakers and then generates a voice print for each individual speaker. The voice print is then used to identify each speaker for the remainder of the conversation. While the captions are not completely accurate, it is able to function in real world environments. AISense has also licensed its transcription technology to Zoom to allow for broader access. The basic plan for Otter is free and allows for 600 minutes of transcription a month.

It is possible to increase access to those who require captioning, whether due to hearing loss or being a non-native English speaker. By using one of these captioning tools, you can ensure that your students, co-workers or employees have access to the needed information.