Reflection

For my Community-Engaged Learning Activity I decided to take the time to write

English subtitles on videos to fill in gaps of language and communication for those that need it.

There were different teams and groups that I could join that were sort of categories of videos that

I could subtitle. I joined a few times such as “Captions Requested”, “ABILITY Magazine”, and

“DO-IT”. Captions Requested was a team that had compiled videos that Deaf and Hard-of-

Hearing users have asked the community to caption. When I was beginning to do more work on

the website, there were actually not many videos on this team that I could contribute to because

most people had already filled in the English captions, and I unfortunately do not know any other

languages well enough to caption them. The ABILITY Magazine is actually one of the leading

magazines that cover disability, health, and is currently working to remove stereotypes. This

team also did not have much that I could contribute to because of the amount of people that had

already done their part in filling the English captions in. Lastly, DO-IT was a team that worked

to empower people with disabilities through technology and education to maximize their

potential. Once again, there was not a lot I could contribute to, but it was still extremely

interesting to be able to go through the videos that had captions already filled in to see examples

as well as get an idea of what this whole website was about. There were plenty more teams that I

wanted to join such as “Code.org” or “NutritionFacts”. Code.org is more aimed towards students

and is a non profitable organization that is dedicated to helping students of all ages to have the

opportunity to learn computer science as a part of their core education. I thought this was super

interesting, but I wasn’t able to join it due to link and website issues. As for NutritionFacts, it’s

actually the only nonprofit, non-commercial, and science based website that provides video

updates on the latest evidence-based nutrition. I didn’t join this one because there was a sort of
hiring process to it as well as I didn’t think there would be very many videos I could subtitle

either. Overall, the teams were incredibly interesting, and I loved that they each specialized in

their own topic or had a sort of goal that they strived to accomplish. It gave a good sense of

community about the whole website. Even though we didn’t really need to communicate with

each other, it still seemed like we were all a group because of the effort, progress, and goals that

we accomplished together. Through more of the public workspace, I was able to find many more

videos that needed English captions, and it’s actually a lot more difficult than most would think

it is. First, you have to be able to understand and write down what they are saying. Sometimes, it

can be really hard to hear or understand what they are saying, especially if there is other

background noise or if their words smudge together, which can be pretty common. Second, you

have to line up the timing with when they are saying it. You also have to make sure that you

don't write more than three lines and don’t give too long of a time or not enough time for the

average person to read it. Then repeat that cycle over and over until you have captioned the

entire video, which can take a ton of time because each line can take a couple minutes to either

decipher or time right without too many characters per line.

On the front page of the website it says, “Amara makes it possible to help bridge

language and communication gaps.” It’s incredibly inspiring for their goal to be in such a general

sense when they promote something so easy to help out with. This task of captioning videos can

take a few hours out of our day to help, but it can be a big help to people with disabilities. It can

make people with disabilities feel much more included and welcomed into the real world because

there is more assistive technology to give them the support that they need. Amara also asks those

that are multilingual for help with translating, and this can be easy for those that are fluent in

more than one language. Language is a part of everyday life for most people, and when it is used
so often it becomes second nature almost. Because of this, it’s easy for people with a little extra

time to just take a moment to translate their known languages for those that may not know more

than one language.

This experience has given me a lot to learn from. Learning how it felt to be a part of a

team and doing my part was a big part of it all. I learned how popular the English language is,

especially in captioning. It helped me understand the need and benefits of learning more

languages, which would help everyone all around–including me. When I started this out, I didn’t

understand the time and effort that went into captioning, but this has changed throughout my 15

hours of service. I also learned how helpful captions can be, especially when listening to a video

that can be pretty incoherent. I’ve actually gained a want for captions whenever watching a video

because then it’s much easier to understand and fully absorb what I’m watching. All in all, this

was a positive experience that I will never forget.