University of Arkansas at Little Rock

It’s a new semester, and all of us in the Disability Resource Center are working with faculty to reduce barriers in teaching, and collaborating with students to help make a smooth transition for their spring classes. Please let us know how we can best serve you! Email me at sadowns@ualr.edu if you would like to reply to this message.

– Sharon Downs, Director

Disability Interest Group

D.I.G. is a new group that was formed during the Fall 2009 semester. The purpose of the group is to give students, staff and faculty a chance to come together in an informal manner and openly discuss dynamics of disability and campus life. D.I.G. will meet on the third Tuesday of every month during the spring semester. All are welcome to attend. If interested in learning more about the group, contact Ashish Bhakta at arbhakta@ualr.edu. You may also email Melanie Thornton, at mpthornton@ualr.edu to be added to the DIG-UALR listserv. We hope to see you at the next meeting on January 19th at 1:00, in DSC SGA T201.

Discussion Board

The DRC recently launched an interactive discussion board on our home page. Read more about our Discussion Board here.

Design Matters: Capture Your Audio, Caption Your Video

The Deaf Community fought a long and difficult battle to get captioning where it is today on televised programming, but with the explosion of online videos there is a new frontier for this struggle. Emerging technologies are making captioning online videos easier than ever. Full article: Capture Your Audio, Caption Your Video

Featured Partner

Joshua Silverstein, professor at the William H. Bowen School of Law, is the DRC Featured Partner. He is a shining example of effective pedagogy that results in fewer barriers to student learning. Full article: Joshua Silverstein.

The Deaf Community fought a long and difficult battle to get captioning where it is today on televised programming. Televisions are designed with decoders so that closed captions are available by making a simple adjustment with your remote control. The broadcast industry and the television industry have risen to the challenge and, as a result, we have come to expect captioned programming. As I write this entry, in fact, I’m sitting in a noisy restaurant but I’m able to follow the news on the television because it is captioned. We’ve come a long way!

Or have we? When we look at the explosion of video posted on the Internet we realize that we, as a society, have not yet made a paradigm shift. Even though laws and policies are in place that require that Web content be made accessible, the percentage of videos posted on the Web that are captioned is decidedly small. The question that hangs out there is whether we value civil rights and inclusion of all members of our society. If our answer to this question is “yes,” then we will take the time to caption the videos we post to the Web.

And Captioning Online Videos Has Just Gotten Easier

For those who are using YouTube to post online videos, the technology has improved tremendously. If you simply create a transcript of the video you post and upload that transcript, the voice recognition engine will put the timings in for you.

Here’s how you do it:

• Create your video.
• Create a transcript of your video and save it as a Rich Text Format file.
• Upload your video to YouTube.
• Go to the “My Videos” section of your YouTube account.
• Find the video you just uploaded.
• Select the “Captions” button.
• Select the “Add New Captions or Transcript” button.
• Browse to your transcript file.
• Select “Transcript file” with the radio buttons.
• Select “Upload file” button.

Resources on Captioning and Accessibility of Online Videos

Automatic Captions in YouTube (Video): This video highlights the automatic captioning features available in YouTube. Author note: We do not recommend relying on the transcript creation tools just yet. While voice recognition software has improve dramatically, users deserve more accurate text versions of the audio.

Captioning YouTube Video and Providing Accessible Controls: This is a wonderful comprehensive tutorial created by the Web Accessibility Center at the Ohio State University. You will find everything there is to know about making sure the video you create and post online is accessible.

Marlee Matlin’s Remarks at FCC Hearing on Broadband Access (Video): The FCC held this field hearing at Gallaudet University in Washington, D.C. on November 6, 2009 as part of its effort to gather information from experts and consumers for the development of a National Broadband Plan. Among those on the first panel was Academy Award-winning actress Marlee Matlin, who is the spokesperson for the National Association of the Deaf for accessible broadband services and Internet media.

YouTube Help Center: Adding/Editing Captions: Step by step tutorial for captioning videos in YouTube.

Oh, and, by the way, these videos are captioned!

Joshua Silverstein, professor at the William H. Bowen School of Law, strives to teach in a way that fits all learning styles, and that is effective for all of his students. The UALR Disability Resource Center is proud to feature Professor Silverstein as a shining example of effective pedagogy that results in fewer barriers to student learning.

Teaching

Professor Silverstein incorporates the white board in all of his lectures. He believes that by giving information in multiple modalities, he can more effectively help his students to learn the material. He prepares his lectures in advance, including drawing out diagrams to put on the white boards. He uses the colors red and blue to indicate the two sides in a dispute, to make the information more visually accessible for students. Here’s an example:

He explains the case as he writes it on the board so both auditory and visual students can benefit. The classes, and thus the white boards, are video-captured for later review by students. He makes his notes available for students with low vision or who otherwise might request a notetaker.

Test Preparation

Law schools are notorious for having only one test at the end of the semester, which can be challenging. Professor Silverstein helps mitigate this by providing three practice essays for students that are not graded, and provides model answers for the students, even providing various ways to approach their response. He lectures on preparing comprehensive summaries of the law, and provides examples. The syllabus for the course is written in this format, and so, from the beginning of the class, the students are exposed to that style of writing.

A couple of years ago, Professor Silverstein reviewed his students’ final exams over a three-year period, and created a comprehensive document of tips for students that contains pitfalls to avoid and strategies for success on exams. He gives this document to his students each semester. And during the class discussions of the practice essays, he relates the tips to the practice test questions, all in order to help his students understand what to anticipate on the final exam, and to be as prepared as possible. This has resulted in improved grades for all of his students.

Professor Silverstein says: In my experience, every student learns using all learning styles. I therefore believe that incorporating a variety of teaching methods is the most effective way to promote student mastery of the course material.

Thank you for putting students first, Professor Silverstein!

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Would you like to nominate someone to be the next DRC Featured Partner? Please contact Sharon Downs at sadowns@ualr.edu, or call 501.569.8252.

The DRC recently launched an interactive discussion board on our homepage, which allows students, staff and faculty alike to contemplate and discuss many aspects of disability and diversity on campus and in the community. To participate, go to ualr.edu/disability and click on a topic under ‘Discussion’ on the left of the page. We hope you will take this opportunity to encourage open discourse at UALR about disability-related issues.