What is it?
Captions provide a text representation of speech and other meaningful audio within video and multimedia. Effective captions include spoken dialogue as well as relevant sounds and speaker identification when needed. Captions may be professionally created, manually edited, or generated automatically by platforms such as YouTube, Microsoft Teams, Zoom, or other media tools.
How to use it?
Turn captions on when showing videos and other media and verify their accuracy before using the content for instruction. Review automatically generated captions for errors, particularly with names, specialized vocabulary, and technical terms. Make captions readable and synchronized with the audio, and provide transcripts when they offer additional access. Whenever possible, choose media that includes accessibility features from the beginning rather than creating a separate experience for learners who need them.
Why use it?
Audio-only information can create barriers for learners who are Deaf or hard of hearing and for anyone who has difficulty accessing speech because of noise, language, attention, or processing demands. Captions make spoken information persistent and visible, providing another pathway to understanding multimedia. Accurate captions can increase access, comprehension, vocabulary learning, and participation for a wide range of learners.
