Closed captions provide text displays of audio for television and video content to benefit those who are deaf or hard of hearing. Captions can also aid language learners and students by improving comprehension. While not all video content has captions, they can be downloaded and played separately from video files on computers. Users can customize caption text size and colors to meet different needs.

1. Closed Captions More Than Just Scrolling Text! Matt Monjan

2. What are Closed Captions? Closed captioning allows persons with hearing disabilities to have access to television programming by displaying the audio portion of a television program as text on the television screen. http://www.captions.org/index.cfm

3. And… Closed captioning provides a critical link to news, entertainment, and information for individuals who are deaf or hard-of-hearing. For individuals whose native language is not English, English language captions improve comprehension and fluency. Captions can also help improve literacy skills. http://www.captions.org/index.cfm

4. Opening up the Closed Captions To help hearing impaired students To reach visual learners To reach ELL students To enrich a grammar lesson To teach a vocabulary lesson To work on predicting outcomes Why might we want to use CC in the classroom?

5. What types of video files work with CC? Windows Media Player files “.asf” are fully compatible with CC. These files can be streamed and/or downloaded Mac users can install a Windows Media Player on their machines and Stream CC videos/segments and Download CC videos/segments. When downloading videos on a Mac, users should choose the .mov or QuickTime files

6. Are all of our videos/segments closed captioned? No, currently about 30% of the basic DE streaming is captioned and 19% of Plus is captioned It breaks down like this: Basic DE streaming = 1,149 full CC videos and 11, 729 CC video clips. Plus = 1,456 full CC videos and 16, 272 video clips

7. Finding Closed Captioned Titles Click on the Advanced Search Link Scroll down and place a check in the Include Only Closed Captioned Titles box

8. Turning CC files on Check the Enable Closed Captioning box in the Media Settings area Set CC as the default in your My Preferences Area

9. Playing (streaming) on a PC or Mac On both of these machines, make sure that the Windows Media Player is installed and selected. Then place a checkmark in the Enable Closed Captioning box

10. Downloading CC videos and CC Files on a PC Create a CC folder Find ANY video in DE streaming and download it into your Close Caption Folder Right-Click on the blue download icon and either Save Target As (IE) or Save Link As (Firefox) Right-Click on the CC icon and either Save Target As (IE) or Save Link As (Firefox) Save file in the same folder

11. Downloading CC videos and CC Files on a Mac Make sure that the Enable Closed Captioning box is checked and that the Windows Media Player option is selected. Download the CC file of the clip you that wish to play later by holding down the Ctrl Key and clicking on CC icon When prompted, choose Save to Disk and click OK . Change DE streaming Media Settings to QuickTime

12. Downloading CC videos and CC Files on a Mac - continued Download the .MOV file of the clip that you wish to play by holding down the Ctrl Key and clicking on blue download icon Once you have downloaded both files, put them in a folder on your desktop. To play your video with closed captions, you will need an application called VLC. It is free. You can download VLC at http:// www.videolan.org/vlc / Open VLC and select Open File… from the File menu. Check Load subtitles file: and click Settings…

13. Downloading CC videos and CC Files on a Mac – last steps! Browse to the .smi file in the folder you created on your desktop, then click OK . Browse to your .mov file in your folder you created on your desktop by clicking the Browse… icon, then click OK . The video should begin playing with closed captions.

14. Note about Network Manager You can queue the CC file to download at the same time as the video but it is not necessary i.e. CC text files are can be downloaded at any time on both PC and Mac.

15. Playing CC videos full screen on a PC Open your Windows Media Player Click on the word “Play” in the tool bar and scroll down to Lyrics, Captions, and Subtitles Choose “On if Available Note: this only works on Windows Media Player 10 or higher

16. Playing CC videos full screen continued Click on the word “ Tools ” in the tool bar and choose “ Options ” Place checkmarks next to: - “ Run script commands when present” -“ Show local captions when present ” (1 st and 4 th boxes) Click on the Apply and OK buttons

17. Neat Trick – Enlarging Close Captioned Text Once the files are downloaded open up your CC folder Right-click on the .smi file and open with a text editor like Notepad Change the Font Size to 20 and/or color to red, yellow, etc.. Change the actual text! “Sharks are top predators This trick is awesome…”

18. Before and After Shots of the CC Trick 10 pt 30 pt

19. CC Text That You Can Change and Play

20. Need a recap – check out the streaming A-Z blog (best blog in the blogosphere) http://tinyurl.com/5ledbo