ELC members: take $5 off when you register for the first Learn @ Lunch in MicroAssist’s Great Voyages: ILT to WBT Learn @ Lunch series (regular admission is $25).  Upon registration, enter the discount code ELC2011 or click here to be directed to the already discounted registration page.

Part One: Setting Sail is February 22, 2011 so register today!

Fractured Atlas is offerining a free E-Learning course on Accessibility. Click here to learn more and to register to take the class on your own schedule.

Audio Description: The Visual Made Verbal

Description is a literary art form. It’s a type of poetry — a haiku. It provides a verbal version of the visual: the visual is made verbal, aural, and oral. Using succinct, vivid, and imaginative describers, you can convey the visual image that is not fully accessible to a significant segment of the population and not fully realized by the rest of us — the rest of us being sighted folks who see, but who may not observe. Audio describers provide services in various multimedia settings, including theater, dance, opera, television, video, film, exhibits, museums, and educational venues — but also at circuses, rodeos, ice skating exhibitions, and at a myriad of sports events.

For broadcast television, on film, videotape, and on DVDs, Audio Description (AD) enhances the regular program audio, precisely timed to occur only during the lapses between dialogue. On televised programs in the United States, it is accessed via a separate digital audio stream; in certain other countries, a set-top box provides access to the signal.

This unique course will introduce participants to the principles of Audio Description, how to produce quality description, and the importance of close communication with the “end users” – people who are blind or have low vision and all people who support this innovative use of technology to provide greater media access.

This course should take about 3-6 hours to complete, but you are free to start and stop as you wish!