As online and blended learning continue to propel the field of higher education into a new age of learning, implementing effective tools and strategies to foster success for future learners must remain a priority.
An example of harnessing technology as a tool for success was discussed in the seminar, “Inclusive live online presentations with automated real-time captions/subtitles: Understanding students’ experiences”, during the virtual component of the Online Learning Consortium’s 28th Annual Conference. The virtual conference provided educators the opportunity to reflect on the challenges of the past few years as well as encourage them to share success stories and engage in forward thinking for the future of the field.
Dr. Anymir Orellana, Professor in the Department of Higher Education Leadership & Instructional Technology at the Abraham S. Fischler College of Education and School of Criminal Justice, Nova Southeastern University, shared research on the positive impact of utilizing closed captioning to cultivate an accessible learning environment and reinforce learning for all students.
Previous research illustrates that captioning is beneficial to all kinds of learners. Diverse learners with various cultural backgrounds, abilities, and learning preferences fill the seats of college classrooms and it is imperative that lectures and course content are made accessible to all, especially in the new digital landscape of learning. Providing subtitles or captions for lectures directly benefits individuals who are deaf or hard of hearing, but also helps hearing adults retain information and even aids individuals learning a second language. By offering captions or subtitles as a text-based alternative to auditory information, educators can make course content equally accessible to all learners.
Higher education institutions should be interested in the usefulness of SRT in the live setting, as this could be a cost-effective approach to providing students with a text-based alternative to the auditory information being shared in the classroom. Though these systems are not yet perfected, artificial intelligence technologies continue to improve and increase the accuracy of SRT. However, the effectiveness and usefulness of automated speech-to-text or speech recognition technologies (SRT) have not yet been determined for live lecture settings, either online or on-site. Advances in these technologies prove successful for recorded video, but the effects on student success of live, real-time subtitling has not been widely studied.
The research by Dr. Orellana and colleagues aim to investigate student perceptions of real-time captioning to better understand how current SRT fosters or inhibits learning during live online class presentations with Microsoft PowerPoint. The team implemented the Universal Design for Learning (UDL) framework to address diversity and variability in student engagement, representation, action, and expression. In their qualitative study, the team investigated:
- How accurate are the captions/subtitles generated in real-time by SRTs?
- How do instructors and students describe the benefits and challenges of using these applications?
- How do instructors and students experience real-time automated captions/subtitles for teaching and learning?
“Overall participants describe a positive experience with the captions and subtitles,” said Dr. Orellana in reference to the study. “[The participants] perceived [the captions] as accurate and did not report having significant issues with the technology that they couldn't resolve themselves.”
The findings of the study can help educators effectively integrate SRT-based applications into their classrooms to better address the multitude of different learners. Providing automated captions as an alternative for auditory content presented in lectures promotes inclusive learning, and employing cutting edge technologies and artificial technologies can help foster student success.