CaptionMax and NCSeT receive funding from National Center for Technology Innovation to Research Educational Benefits of Captions and Audio Description
Minneapolis, MN—The National Center for Technology Innovation (NCTI) announced their Technology in the Works 2008 award recipients. The competition recognizes outstanding innovative teams of researchers and vendors who will examine the impact of assistive technologies for students with special needs.
One of these prestigious awards was to the joint proposal submitted by CaptionMax and the National Center for Supported eText (NCSeT) for Making Video Content Accessible to All: Exploring the Benefits of Enhanced Captioning and Expanded Audio Description for All Students.
CaptionMax currently creates enhanced captions, expanded audio description, and accessible navigation for educational multimedia programs suitable for the K-12 classroom. The development of these access features, funded by the U.S. Department of Education, follow Universal Design for Learning (UDL) principles. Although designed to increase access to video content for students with sensory impairments, these UDL features could increase comprehension of video content for all learners.
The NCTI grant will allow CaptionMax to collaborate with NCSeT to explore the educational impact of two specific video content accessibility features.
“Research on the educational value of captioning and description remains very limited,” stated Max Duckler, CaptionMax’s President and Chief Scientist. “This grant will enable us to work with NCSeT to begin a new field of inquiry that we hope other researchers will want to join.”
“We are delighted to have been selected as a 2008 Technology in the Works recipient,” noted Lynne Anderson-Inman, Director of the National Center for Supported eText. “This funding will enable us to investigate important research questions about effective ways to enhance captions and audio descriptions so as to maximize student learning from video.”
Research findings will be announced on November 19, 2008, at the kickoff of NCTI’s Technology Innovators Conference being held in Washington, DC.
Visit the official NCTI announcement for more information on the grant award program.
About CaptionMax
CaptionMax is a nationally recognized full-service captioning and audio description company that has been providing services to the broadcast, corporate, home entertainment, educational, and government media industries since 1993. In addition to captions and descriptions produced for non-broadcast educational programming, CaptionMax’s captions are seen on “American Idol,” all of the “Law and Order” programs, “The Office,” and numerous other programs. Described and captioned broadcast shows include popular and critically acclaimed educational programs such as “Yo Gabba Gabba,” “Ni Hao Kai-lan,” and “Jean Michel Cousteau's Ocean Adventures.” Headquartered in Minneapolis, MN, CaptionMax has offices in New York, Virginia, and Burbank, California. For more information, visit the CaptionMax website at http://www.captionmax.com.
About the National Center for Supported eText
The National Center for Supported eText (NCSeT) is a federally funded research center investigating the impact of "supported electronic text" (or supported etext) on students' reading comprehension of content area material. Current funding for NCSeT is through a five-year cooperative agreement with the Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) in the U.S. Department of Education. NCSeT is directed collaboratively by Dr. Lynne Anderson-Inman at the University of Oregon and Dr. Judith Zorfass at Education Development Center (EDC) in Newton, MA. NCSeT supports a community of researchers across the country, including research teams at Michigan State University, University of Georgia, University of Kentucky, Ohio State University, Fordham University, and Collier County, FL, in addition to the University of Oregon and EDC.
About the National Center for Technology Innovation
The National Center for Technology Innovation (NCTI) (www.NationalTechCenter.org), established in 2001, advances learning opportunities for all students, with a special focus on those with disabilities, by fostering technology innovations. Funded by the Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) at the U.S. Department of Education, NCTI offers technical guidance to facilitate the growth and sustainability of assistive and learning tools. NCTI broadens and enriches the field by providing high-quality resources and developing meaningful partnerships with innovators, entrepreneurs, researchers, and practitioners. The National Center for Technology Innovation is housed at the American Institutes for Research in Washington, DC.
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