Captioning and Transcription for K-12

Video is increasingly becoming a popular means of education, particularly in K-12 schools.

As a result, captioning is increasingly becoming a hot topic for K-12 schools.

When it comes to captioning, what do K-12 schools care about? What are their challenges? And what do they look for in a captioning vendor?

What is important to K-12 schools?

• Student Accommodation: As more classrooms incorporate video into the lesson plan, K-12 schools need to find ways to make their videos accessible to students. Video isn’t accessible to deaf and hard of hearing students. As a result, many K-12 schools caption to accommodate student requests.
• Accuracy: In education, accuracy is everything. Inaccurate captions can misinform and confuse students. K-12 schools want a captioning solution that is accurate in punctuation, grammar, and terminology.
• Legal Compliance: Federal laws in the United States require public and private K-12 schools to provide captioning to students. However, there is some variation on which laws apply to public and private K-12 schools. Public schools must abide by Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), Americans with Disabilities Act Title II, Section 504 and Section 508 (if the school receives federal funding through the Assistive Technology Act), and state laws. Private schools must comply with the ADA Title III, Section 504 (if the school receives federal funding), and state laws. If a private K-12 school receives state funding that is provided from federal funding through the Assistive Technology Act, then that private school must also comply with Section 508.

What are the common challenges for K-12 schools?

• Budget: Finding a budget for captioning is a major challenge for K-12 schools. Public K-12 schools receive limited funds from the state and the federal government, which means they must allocate their budgets accordingly. Often, finding a budget for captioning is difficult. K-12 schools are looking for a captioning solution that is accurate but won’t break the bank.

What captioning and transcription vendor features are important to K-12 schools?

• • Competitive Pricing: K-12 schools want a solution that is cost-effective, without sacrificing accuracy. At 3Play, we use a mix of technology and human editors to provide high-quality captions at a lower price point.

• • Quality and Accuracy: 3Play guarantees 99% accuracy on all files, regardless of difficult content. Many of our transcriptionists have backgrounds in engineering, math, and other STEM fields. 3Play also allows users to upload a cheat sheet where you can list important terminology.
  • Integrations with Lecture Capture Systems and Online Video Platforms: To help ease captioning workflows, at 3Play, we integrated with all the major video players, including Kaltura, Panopto, Mediasite, Echo360, and YouTube. Our integrations will automatically post your captions back to your video, giving you more time to focus on other projects.
  • LMS Compatibility: Some Learning Management Systems (LMS) don’t allow teachers to post videos with interactive transcripts. At 3Play, we’ve created an LMS feature that allows you to easily add captions, interactive transcripts, and audio descriptions to your LMS page.

• Transcript: Transcripts are beneficial for both students and teachers. Transcripts can be used as study guides, repurposed as lesson materials, and are an easy way to help students catch up on lessons they may have missed. At 3Play, we provide both a caption file and a transcript for all videos. You can easily download transcripts as PDFs or implement them as interactive transcripts.
• Audio Description: K-12 schools are required to provide audio description to accommodate blind and low vision students. In addition to captioning, 3Play also offers high quality, competitively priced

K-12 schools that use 3Play