For years, the Deaf Community has been seeking greater access to videos shown on the internet. YouTube has developed a new technology that allows videos with sound to be automatically captioned. For the first time in the history of technology, it is as easy as pressing a button on the YouTube program to receive captions.
Instructional television teacher from the California School for the Deaf, Joey Baer, and his high school students Angel Harrington, Myra Rubio, and Rachelle Richardson participated in YouTube’s press conference on Thursday, March 4, to formally announce access to YouTube through captioning.
As a result of their participation and the national press coverage it received, CSD’s own student-produced news on YouTube, “Talon News,” has had an exponential increase in its viewer count from 300 hits to over 14,000 hits within one day. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tXZdhMyPHsQ
The national press coverage about the deaf youth from California School for the Deaf appears on the following websites:
Tech Crunch
http://techcrunch.com/2010/03/04/youtube-launches-auto-captions-for-all-videos/
BBC
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8550830.stm
Washington Post
San Jose Mercury
http://www.mercurynews.com/google/ci_14514072?source=email&nclick_check=1
Wall Street Journal
Mashable
http://mashable.com/2010/03/04/youtube-auto-captioning/
Newser
http://www.newser.com/story/82493/youtube-adds-captions-for-deaf.html
SEEKING EQUAL ACCESS
For further information on the issue of accessibility, see http://www.nad.org/issues/technology/internet-access-and-broadband.
- Thanks to GV








