Accessible Television In The Classroom

The potential of television as an educational tool has been widely recognized in terms of early childhood education, since the launch of Sesame Street more than 40 years ago. Television offers the same potential in primary and secondary education. Teachers and families have reported using educational TV to satisfy a variety of objectives:

To introduce, reinforce, and expand on content being taught.
To respond to a variety of learning styles.
To increase student motivation to learn.
To stimulate other learning activities.

The addition of accessibility features, such as captioning and description, increases the educational value and provides equal access. All of the programs below were made accessible through grants by the U.S. Department of Education, Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services/Office of Special Education Services. Some were part of the DCMP grant, while others were a part of five Television Access grants, awarded to Bridge Multimedia, CaptionMax, Dicapta, Narrative Television Network, and National Captioning Institute. Through a special pilot project, the Television Access grantees received approval from content partners to allow for the distribution of content to DCMP members.