Are you thinking of having a collaborative meeting instead of a webinar?
Here are 6 tips to help make accessible online gatherings on a limited budget using zoom.
Plain text is below if the PDF is not accessible:
1. Send reminders
- 1 day before the call send out a reminder from zoom meeting registration.
- 1 hour before the call send out a reminder from zoom meeting registration.
2. Have Ground rules stated at the beginning of every consultation.
- Reminders shared at the beginning by Emcees.
- Make rules as simple as possible.
3. Have a plan for the unexpected.
- There is zero tolerance towards abuse of any kind.
- A participant/caller (who breaks the rule) will be immediately removed.
- The chair/host explains why they will not have the caller/speaker continue and then reaffirms the commitment to, for example, anti-racism work, and reminds people it is an inclusive, safe space, laying out the ground rules again to refresh everyone’s memory.
4. Set up a wait room
Remind people they will be muted up on entry.
5. Create roles for the Online Gathering (support team)
- Have an "Open Mic person
- A Muter/Timekeeper
- Conflict for the Unexpected
- Cheerleader of Fun
- Screen Spotlighter
- Tech Support
Have team join rehearsal and show up 20 minutes in advance of meeting to assign roles and test sound
6. Access tips for lip readers and hearing loss
- Before joining a video call, spend a few minutes adjusting your position and equipment for best sound, light on your face (not from behind) look directly into the camera.
- Limit background noise, use headphones if possible.
- With a highly accented voice, the auto-captioning system will have a hard time.
- Keep headphones and a microphone close to lips.
- Show documents into the camera or share your screen with the documents.
- Users can slow it down to help listeners.
- Reading lips and reading captions imposes multi-tasking on the person with hearing loss.
- Keep video conference calls to an hour.
- Ensure people talk one at a time, and repeat when necessary (if difficulty hearing).
- Rephrase wording with different vocabulary if there is difficulty picking up the speech.
- Use chat function to convey key points during video-conference calls.
- Keeping captions 2 lines can accommodate a chunk of speech that can be quickly read and is long enough to maintain the gist of what is being said at that moment. Avoid Jumbotron auto-captions (showing only a few words at a time; as makes it hard to follow).
Software solutions:
- Dragon Naturally Speaking
- Otter.ai
- Streamtext can be integrated with Zoom
Our gratitude to:
Sheila Serup, Canadian Hard of Hearing Association - Calgary
Meaghon Reid & Jaclyn Silbernagel, Vibrant Communities Calgary providing insight to help make inclusive safe spaces.
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