Projected materials, film and video
Teaching materials presented as film or video are likely to present difficulties for blind and visually impaired students. There are two main ways to make them more accessible.
- The student could be given a copy of the film or video before the teaching session, to watch with a sighted assistant who would describe the visual aspects to them.
- If the film or video is an important part of your teaching it may be sensible to invest in an audio description. The RNIB Customer Services Centre has a Braille and audio-described video library, and a service for producing audio descriptions.
The Scottish Sensory Centre has produced a useful resource on making video more accessible to visually impaired learners.
Deaf and hard of hearing students require transcriptions or subtitled videos for the content to be accessible.
- If subtitles are not available, provide transcripts of videos in advance for deaf students and their interpreters or lipspeakers to give them an opportunity to prepare.
- Allow students to borrow a copy of the video beforehand so that they can watch it with their interpreter
- If practicable, provide a lamp so that the interpreter or lipspeaker is still visible to the deaf student while the lights are dimmed.
Ensure that any off air recordings that you make to support your course use a VCR that can record embedded subtitles. If you are using bought videos try to ensure that they have embedded subtitles and use a caption decoder. Films on DVD usually have a subtitle option.
Subtitles or transcriptions are needed for these materials to be accessible to deaf students. Make a transcript available for the BSL interpreter or lipspeaker prior to the viewing to give them time to prepare.