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#AcademicTwitter - did you know that there's free, reliable software that will close-caption your powerpoint presentations, on screen, in real-time while you give them? This #accessibility tool should be implemented everywhere! 1/n
The traditional academic talk (and conferences) excludes people with disabilities (e.g. Deaf, hard of hearing, auditory processing disorder), as well as folks who don't speak the language natively. These tools can really level the playing field and make science accessible! 2/n
If you use google slides (from the Chrome browser, it didn't work in my Firefox), just press the 'cc' button and have your microphone on - I tested this today and the captions were near perfect. More info here: blog.google/outreach-initi… 3/n
#Microsoft also has a tool, called "Presentation Translator" that works with most of its recent products (but not yet #office2019 - the one I have). They claim to caption real time, save transcripts, and broadcast translations to 60 languages. translator.microsoft.com/help/presentat… 4/n
I wish I'd known about these tools years ago - there's no excuse to be giving an inaccessible talk without real-time captioning. The technology exists, and it's *good*. Now I just need to go find a wireless microphone that will let me walk around while I talk. 5/n
That's my new and super exciting #accessibility technology discovery of the day. Has anyone used this in the wild? It's perfect for classrooms, and should be implemented at all major conferences - the technology exists. Lets use it for good. 6/6
