Zoom: Provide Free Captions for People with Hearing Loss on Video Conferencing Platforms

Shari Eberts, a hearing loss advocate in the front lines, has been working hard to get video conferencing platforms to provide free captioning for people with nearing loss. Google and Microsoft have done so. Please sign this petition to get Zoom to provide captions for free as well. Our goal is to reach 50,000 signatures and we need more support. You can read more and sign the petition at: http://chng.it/BxBmLGZbSt.

HLAA Boston Chapter Mini-Letter

Betty Hauck writes on hearatboston@googlegroups.com:

Thanks to Sue Schy’s efforts, with help from Andrea Kaneb who is an N-CHATT volunteer, we had our second virtual meeting [May 16] and our first with captions, using Google Meet. It was great to see 20 participants including a few from other MA chapters, who were present to hear Kevin Franck, the head of audiology at Mass Eye and Ear, speak about hearing loss in the age of Covid-19. He spoke about services that are available at MEEI and much useful information that is accessible from the MEEI website https://www.masseyeandear.org/.

If you go to your website you can find lots of helpful information that you can transfer to your own smart phone by holding it up to the code In the upper right corner. This includes helpful communication tools if you need to go to the hospital and online resources. If you don’t have them already thIs is a good time to download a transcribing app like Otter for iPhones or Live Transcribe for Androids that can help with communicating in a hospital setting. There is also a list of things to take with you if you should need to go to the hospital – including your hearing aids! Care and maintenance of hearing aids was also discussed.

Hearing In a World With COVID-19

image of COVID-19Sue Schy writes on hearatboston@googlegroups.com:

Please join Dr. Kevin Franck and the Boston Chapter of HLAA as he talks about hearing in a world with COVID and some of its implications.  Please watch https://vimeo.com/408989211 first.

Google Meet allows captioning. You will be able to caption this presentation from your own computer. Please click on the link below and allow access to your screen and microphone.

 
Andrea Kaneb has put together a tutorial to do this.
Google Meet meeting has passed.  (10/1/2020)