When it comes to the world of e-learning, video content ranks right up there in terms of effective teaching aid. Never was this more apparent than in the times of the Covid pandemic, where students of all ages were forced to "go to school" while staying inside the confines of home. The world of education had to learn quickly to scale the process of producing video e-learning content. This mode of teaching mirrored the "seminar" mode of school, of being taught by a qualified adult standing in front of a blackboard. Online education also reflected the classroom experience insofar that it was one lecture at a time, disseminated to the entire class or grade via their tablets, laptops or desktops.
These modules helped keep every student's learning mode in the "on" position. They helped students stay engaged with the course content prescribed in their curriculum while also allowing for timely check-ins with the teacher. But was producing a lecture or seminar in video form enough? While they helped bridge the gap during the pandemic, streaming the modules online wasn't enough to ensure recall and review of the lessons. And this is where captioning comes in to help with literacy in e-learning.
Making Lesson Recall and Review Easier with Captions
Every teacher who has ever set a lesson plan knows this to be true. It's not enough to devise a lesson plan for student engagement. Every lesson also needs that crucial metric that determines student success: assimilation and application of the lesson. Captioning content makes it easy to retain the lesson in chunks of text for recall, and transcripts of the lesson also serve as a review aid. Classes in the form of TV programs, online videos, and slideshows that offer closed captions make it easy for students to remain on top of their academic progress, pandemics and illnesses notwithstanding. Captions are accessible on the TV via remote or on the student's computer or tablet via the menu panel.
Captions also open up the world of vocabulary as they learn the spellings of new words as they learn each subject. And when online, they can readily reach for a thesaurus via Webster or Dictionary to understand and assimilate newer words into their lexicon. The written word has long been a teacher's aid to help with comprehension, composition, communication, and literacy skills in a student, and captions help with this in the new age of learning via gadgets. Research also shows that children retain what they learn better when they read the text along with the presentation. What is essential in this regard is that captions be accurate, which is one of the hallmarks of SyncWords, with over 99% accuracy and 20 years of experience developing captioning and subtitling products, and solutions in keeping with technological advancement.
You will also remember visual aids being used to teach children new words: associating pictures with words, memory games, number literacy, and the like. Captions make this component of learning easy. They combine several aspects of language literacy as the association between video and text becomes the default. Students who are used to visual aid learning will find this transition to captions an easy and accessible progression in their learning journey. This naturally leads to enhancing reading skills, helping parents who are home-schooling their children, or helping them at home with the school curriculum. This way, parents remain involved with their child's learning curve.
Opening up the Learning World through Automatic Translation
One of the notable advantages of using captions in e-learning is that they are effective while being inexpensive. This last year has also ensured that children will know this option of toggling the captions to "on" without needing an adult to demonstrate it. There is the added benefit of learning in a chosen language for those to whom English is a second language. Most captions have the option of machine translation through inbuilt dictionaries and algorithms in different languages.
Automatic translation is another aspect of the industry in which SyncWords excels. SyncWords offers translation capabilities to over 100 languages for all pre-recorded content, with even more languages to be added in the coming year. SyncWords' Media Localization AI is the key to its superior automated subtitling service. SyncWords' AI ensures intelligent parsing and handling of content and metadata throughout the translation process and assembles the translated output into UX-optimized subtitles while ensuring timing integrity throughout. In short, accuracy in text AND timing. SyncWords' automated subtitles are used by corporate and education customers as well as broadcasters and OTT providers. And in case you don't find the language you are looking for, all you need to do is get in touch with us. We will let you know if we are already in the process of adding it, or we will add it to our list.
To wrap up
Nobody was prepared for the sudden change in a child's learning curve that the pandemic wrought. This was unforeseen from every single perspective. But children of all ages and comprehension levels, who had to suddenly pivot to learning at home from the classroom as a known learning environment, benefited from the captions available in their e-learning modes. Parents also had to learn to "recreate" the classroom at home in its entirety. This was no longer about reminding children about their home assignments and finishing them on time. This was about standing in and aiding the child's teacher in ensuring that the forced learn-from-home year did not hinder their child's academic progress. Captioning has made the learning world a whole lot more accessible to children.
Captions, whether learning via mobile, computer or television, make it easy for parents to help navigate this new learning ecosystem by giving them the tools they need in making the home learning environment fun and supportive. They also have contributed to the integrity of the learning world, keeping the learn and recall mode intact. Read-along or save for later, captions and translations have simplified e-learning for children of all ages.
