Families and school personnel (including those in training) who have at least one student with a disability can sign up for free membership.
Standards-aligned videos with high-quality captions and audio description.
Create lessons and assign videos to managed Student Accounts.
Educator and sign language training videos for school personnel and families.
Find resources for providing equal access in the classroom, making media accessible, and maximizing your use of DCMP's free services.
DCMP's Learning Center provides hundreds of articles on topics such as remote learning, transition, blindness, ASL, topic playlists, and topics for parents.
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DCMP offers the only guidelines developed for captioning and describing educational media, used worldwide.
Learn how to apply for membership, find and view accessible media, and use DCMP’s teaching tools.
DCMP offers several online courses, including many that offer RID and ACVREP credit. Courses for students are also available.
Asynchronous, online classes for professionals working with students who are deaf, hard of hearing, blind, low vision, or deaf-blind.
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For interpreters, audio describers, parents, and educators working with students who are hard of hearing, low vision, and deaf-blind.
Modules are self-paced, online trainings designed for professionals, open to eLearners and full members.
These self-paced, online learning modules cover the topics of transition, note-taking, and learning about audio description.
DCMP can add captions, audio description, and sign language interpretation to your educational videos and E/I programming.
Captions are essential for viewers who are deaf and hard of hearing, and audio description makes visual content accessible for the blind and visually impaired.
DCMP can ensure that your content is always accessible and always available to children with disabilities through our secure streaming platforms.
DCMP partners with top creators and distributors of educational content. Take a look
The DCMP provides services designed to support and improve the academic achievement of students with disabilities. We partner with top educational and television content creators and distributors to make media accessible and available to these students.
Filtering by tag: educators
In an address on March 15, 2011, the U.S. Department of Education (ED) Secretary Duncan stated: "In order to win the future, as President Obama has challenged us, we must enable every single American to reach their potential, and in my book, all means all. Every child, regardless of income, race, background, or disability can learn and must learn."
Do you see your students or child having a conversation on a variety of topics, understanding how to participate in a group, walking in the hallways of school talking and laughing with others, or participating in enrichment activities after school with friends? Maybe you do, but most often teachers and parents say children with visual impairments are not ready for most social situations. Lack of vision may affect the ability to model others’ social behaviors and the use of incidental learning for many common social skills.
Transition is the buzz word in deaf services these days. Anyone who works in a mainstream or residential high school or anyone in vocational rehabilitation encounters this word frequently, especially around graduation time. The problem is that there does not seem to be a consensus on when to start the process or even what the process is. We all know that kids graduate high school—but then what? The Described and Captioned Media Program (DCMP) is doing their part to make sure that the "then what?" is not an ending but truly a commencement.
Storytelling provides a language of learning that delights the imagination. Throughout the ages, people have conveyed truth, beauty, courage, and imagination through a story. Fiction, non-fiction, and narrative stories are all exciting genres that help us enter "the world of the story."
When I was in 2nd through 4th grade, I started attending meetings to plan for my future. My mom wanted me to be involved and listen to people in my meeting. In the meeting, I felt so confused and overwhelmed when I listened to their discussions about my future. In 5th grade, I was still attending the IEP (in Texas they are called ARD) meetings to discuss my future and how to improve my education. By this time, I was very upset and still did not understand why I had to be involved in the meeting every year! My mom tried to explain why I had to attend the meeting and why it was important, but I still did not want to attend the meeting. Then, later when I was in the 6th through 7th grade, I finally started to participate and discuss issues on how to improve my education and plan my future a little bit at a time. Just in case, I had my advocate there to take over and tell them about my classes if I needed help.
Approximately 50 book titles compiled by Mary Ann Siller. A reading motivation for students who are blind or visually impaired is to introduce them to books with visually impaired characters. The forty-eight titles in this bibliography compiled by Mary Ann Siller include stories about Ronald who has an array of humorous mishaps until he gets this glasses (Watch Out Ronald Morgan!), an emperor's daughter who is blind (The Seeing Stick), Brian who is blind and learns to take care of his new parakeet (Brian's Bird), and many more.
Transition planning for high school students has been going on in some formal way for over two decades within the school system. Some states set the transition age at 14, and others started the planning at age 16. In most cases, it was addressed as a separate process with its own set of paperwork from that of the Individual Education Plan developed in an IEP meeting where academic progress, classroom accommodations and other student needs were addressed. The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) places emphasis on the importance of the transition planning process, with clear guidelines as to how planning should take place.
Happy Birthday Louis Braille! The inventor of the Braille code is known throughout the world as a great humanitarian who believed in literacy for everyone. What a wonderful tribute "Braille Literacy Month" is to his legacy through the centuries.
When Carter G. Woodson created the observance of "Negro History Week," which later became "Black History Month," he inspired African Americans to protect and uphold their history, which not only includes written history, but also oral history and the preservation of special and unique artifacts. Our history is our genesis, our present, and our path to the future. It explains how we came to be, who we are, where we are today, and where we are going tomorrow.
The Described and Captioned Media Program (DCMP) is a national non-profit that is federally funded to serve as a free-loan media library of accessible educational videos for K–12 students who are deaf, hard of hearing, blind, visually impaired, or deaf-blind. DCMP recently conducted interviews in order to determine how accessible videos are used in the classroom with students who are deaf-blind and what other options need to be included in order for these videos to meet the widest need possible.
The National Education Association (NEA) annually sponsors an event called Read Across America. Originally created as a one-day celebration of reading on March 2, Dr. Seuss's birthday, the activity has grown into a nationwide initiative that promotes reading every day of the year. The result has been a focus of the country's attention on how important it is to motivate children to read, in addition to helping them master basic skills.
How Captioning and Description Can Benefit You
In the last two decades, technology has advanced exponentially. As a result, the Described and Captioned Media Program (DCMP) has adapted to provide needed resources to Deaf and Hard of Hearing individuals. As I look back over my career as a teacher of the deaf, I realize that DCMP has always been a critical resource in my classroom, and I am grateful that DCMP has kept up with the winds of change. Whether media arrived in the form of reel-to-reel films, VHS, DVD, or streamed through the internet, DCMP has always been my rock. Today as I work hard to prepare my students for successful 21st -century careers, I find that DCMP is more important than it has ever been.
If you would like to recommend media for captioning, description, ASL, or inclusion into the DCMP library, simply print this PDF, fill it out, and mail or fax it to us. You can also fill out the DCMP Media Recommendation Form online.
Captions (sometimes called “subtitles”) are the textual representation of a video's soundtrack. They are critical for viewers who are deaf or hard of hearing, and they are also a great tool for improving the reading and listening skills of others. Unlike subtitles, captions provide information such as sound effects and speaker identification.
