Described and Captioned Media Program Newsletter


This month’s features:

December: A World of Special Celebrations		A Sound Idea
Do your students celebrate Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Ashura, or another special time?		Can a professional with visual impairments produce described media?
DCMP to Provide More Accessible Media in Spanish!		Video Description Innovation Webinar: January 24
New support for cultural and linguistic diversity!		Learn how to provide better video access to students who are blind and visually-impaired!

December: A World of Special Celebrations

Enhance your Kwanzaa study with use of The Africans, a 9-part captioned and described video look into the soul of modern Africa.

Have you despaired of instilling any real learning in your students as they eagerly and restlessly anticipate the December holidays? Are you frantic about the lost learning time, but reluctant to deprive your students of their pleasure in this exciting time of year? Why not combine learning with fun by using DCMP accessible educational resources ?

This month offers great opportunities for teaching about our multicultural world. Also, our Winter Holidays flyer provides information on some of DCMP's free-loan holiday media. And there may be December Holidays and Observances You May Never Have Heard Of.

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A Sound Idea

Rick Boggs, the first blind engineer to produce video description, is also an entrepreneur, advocate, actor/musician, and public speaker. In an important article he has written for the DCMP, Mr. Boggs relates his own person career journey through what he describes as a pattern of exclusion in the news and entertainment media. He strongly feels that including professionals with disabilities and consumers of described and captioned media in the production of accessible media may be an effective means to reverse the discriminatory trend.

In his article you will read about his role as a consultant to the Video Description Research and Development Center, VDRDC, he is collaborating with the National Federation of the Blind to design a Professional Development Workshop to be offered next Spring. The workshop aims to certify blind trainees as Description Quality Specialists and to prepare them to immediately begin to work in the video description industry as the federal mandate for broadcast video description becomes enforced in July 2012.

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DCMP To Provide More Accessible Media In Spanish!

Many American Schools are acknowledging that they are not meeting the needs of hundreds of thousands of students learning to speak English. Availability of accessible educational Spanish-language media is very low. In response to these needs, the DCMP will begin providing 25% of its new captioned and described educational media in Spanish. To expedite and ensure quality in this process, the DCMP has formed a partnership with Dicapta, the first company to provide Spanish-language video description in the United States. Dicapta will perform Spanish captioning and description of DCMP media and the promotion of the DCMP services. Work with the DCMP will also include assistance in determining the needs of English language learners with special needs (ELSN).

Watch our website and newsletter for announcements about new Spanish-language accessible educational media. In the meantime, don't miss DCMP's American Sign Language Training In Spanish. Also, view an English-language listing of DCMP titles captioned in Spanish. This interactive listing will allow you to stream and/or borrow titles on DVD. Further, you are able to view our Spanish-language catalog.

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Video Description Innovation Webinar: January 24

A forward-looking webinar will be presented on January 24, 2012 for teachers, administrators, and parents. In collaboration with the DCMP, the Video Description Research and Development Center (VDRDC) will provide a solid foundation for anyone interested in providing better access to video (including web-based) for students who are blind and visually-impaired. Webinar topics will include:

A teachers' guide to using video description
A comprehensive overview of resources for obtaining described materials
A sneak peak at the description technologies of the future being developed at the VDRDC

The VDRDC, administered by Smith-Kettlewell Eye Research Institute, is a two-year federally-funded project with the mission to develop new technologies and techniques for the annotation of online video content and to investigate innovative technologies and techniques for improving video accessibility for blind and visually-impaired students. This Webinar, one in a series of four to be presented during the project, is part of the VDRDC vigorous program of outreach and information dissemination regarding technologies that can improve video access. Participants will be given an opportunity to learn from and interact with VDRDC scientists, DCMP staff, and the Description Leadership Network coalition of world-class organizations involved with the practicality, policy, and technology of blindness and video accessibility. Register now to learn how innovative technologies can be used in the classroom.

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Quick Hits
NFB Partners with Santa to Promote Braille Literacy	DCMP YouTube Channel: Holiday Classic Movie Treats	Captioning References: Your Holiday Gifts
Once again, Santa has enlisted the help of the elves at the National Federation of the Blind's Jernigan Institute to get Braille letters out to hundreds of blind boys and girls this Christmas season. Between November 15 and December 20, parents can fill out a Santa Braille Letter request form online. The form can also be printed and faxed to (410) 685-2340.	Scrooge is the first sound version of the movie based on the novel "A Christmas Carol" by Charles Dickens. It also is the only adaptation of the story with an invisible Marley's ghost. DCMP's classic Children's Stories include titles such as The Borrowers, Call of the Wild, and Lassie's Great Adventure. And there are many more classic movie titles for pleasure and learning.	The Commission for Deaf, DeafBlind, and Hard of Hearing Minnesotans gave a gift for you. Captioning Resources provides links to a list of captioning resources and tools for your use. Also, Christopher Phillips has provided captioning advocates with Benefits of Captions on his Curb Cut website which "focuses on accessibility, disability and openness." Last, but not least, the Collaborative for Communication Access via Captioning "is the place to be for captioning advocacy, that's the only thing we do."

The contents of this newsletter were developed under a grant from the U.S. Department of Education, Cooperative Agreement #H327N060002.

However, those contents do not necessarily represent the policy of the U.S. Department of Education, and you should not assume endorsement by the Federal Government. Project Officer, Ernest Hairston.

The DCMP is administered by the National Association of the Deaf.