The visit follows a motion co-sponsored by the Minister in March which called on the Government to commit to a pilot captioning program in classrooms.
Senator Fifield said, “Captioning technology is proven to deliver transformational results for students. This is the sort of support that could be purchased for students under the Coalition’s Education Card Policy which allows families to choose the services right for their child.”
During the visit, the Minister watched live captioning in action, gaining an insight into stenocaptioning and Live Remote Captioning (LRC). Red Bee Media demonstrated how their LRC system helps Deaf and hearing impaired university students by captioning lectures live.
LRC captures the lecture via a lapel or body-pack microphone and then transmits the audio to a studio where it is then converted to text by a specialist captioner. The student can then read the captions from a secure website in real time.
Having been in place for seven years, the university captioning program shows how captions can make a real difference to Deaf and hearing impaired students.
“It is great that Live Remote Captioning has been recognised as a viable option for classroom inclusion schemes,” said Chris Howe, Managing Director of Red Bee Media.
The Minister’s support comes in the midst of the CAP THAT! campaign that promotes captions in the classroom for improved literacy and inclusion for all students.
For ways to promote access and inclusion in the classroom visit the Education section of the Media Access Australia website.
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