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Free Membership - Access to more than just media

Families and school personnel (including those in training) who have at least one student with a disability can sign up for free membership.

Accessible Media

Standards-aligned videos with high-quality captions and audio description.

Teaching Tools

Create lessons and assign videos to managed Student Accounts.

Training Videos

Educator and sign language training videos for school personnel and families.
Learning Center

Find resources for providing equal access in the classroom, making media accessible, and maximizing your use of DCMP's free services.
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Accessibility Information

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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Accessibility Guidelines

DCMP offers the only guidelines developed for captioning and describing educational media, used worldwide.
Captioning Key
Description Key

Help Center

Learn how to apply for membership, find and view accessible media, and use DCMP’s teaching tools.
Help Center
Continuing Education and Professional Development

DCMP offers several online courses, including many that offer RID and ACVREP credit. Courses for students are also available.
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QuickClasses

Asynchronous, online classes for professionals working with students who are deaf, hard of hearing, blind, low vision, or deaf-blind.

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Workshops

For interpreters, audio describers, parents, and educators working with students who are hard of hearing, low vision, and deaf-blind.
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Modules

Modules are self-paced, online trainings designed for professionals, open to eLearners and full members.
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Students

These self-paced, online learning modules cover the topics of transition, note-taking, and learning about audio description.

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Make your educational content accessible and broadly available.

DCMP can add captions, audio description, and sign language interpretation to your educational videos and E/I programming.
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Accessibility

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.

Distribution

DCMP can ensure that your content is always accessible and always available to children with disabilities through our secure streaming platforms.

Meet our partners

DCMP partners with top creators and distributors of educational content. Take a look
About the Described and Captioned Media Program

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.
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Services

Captioning, audio description, and ASL services

Professional training for school personnel

Distribution of fully accessible streaming media

Projects

Media Center

Television Access

We Describe the World

YouTube Audio Description

Privacy and TOS

Privacy Statement

Terms of Service

Accessibility Policy

Mission and Funding

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"Silent Films" Revisited: Captioned Films for the Deaf

The silent films of the early 1900s had a huge audience, hearing and deaf, for public entertainment and instruction. The advent of "talkies," however, excluded deaf people from this means of access to mainstream American culture. In response to a new need for both captioned educational and entertainment films for deaf people, Congress passed Public Law 85-905 in 1958, which established Captioned Films for the Deaf as a federal program. This article addresses the history of the Captioned Films/Videos for the Deaf program, the kinds of films and videos available, and the procedures for borrowing them through educational and theatrical captioned film/video libraries. Also discussed are the various captioning processes and the implications of the availability of these materials for librarians who are concerned about the special needs of the deaf community.

Silent Films Revisited: Captioned Films for the Deaf

Tags: dcmp, captioning, history

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