AUSTIN, Texas, April 22, 2020 /PRNewswire/ — Rev.com today entered the fight against the detrimental effects that the global COVID-19 pandemic has had on an unprepared, often-underfunded educational system. In an effort to support educators as they grapple with the overwhelming challenges of virtual classrooms, Rev is providing free access to its new live captioning Zoom integration to all K-12 educators through June 30, 2020. The live captions are powered by the world’s most accurate English speech recognition engine and Rev is the only speech-to-text provider offering free live captions to educators for the remainder of the school year.

Accurately capturing live course materials is paramount for students who are hard of hearing or experiencing increased distractions in their new learn-from-home environments. Educators need a solution that consistently displays precise terminology, punctuation and grammar. Internal accuracy benchmarking conducted on Rev’s industry-leading live speech recognition engine consistently yielded greater than 90% accuracy.

“Distance learning and educating, at this volume, is a new experience for all involved and being able to effectively reach every student is our biggest challenge and highest priority,” said Leslie Sanderson, Journalism Advisor at Glenda Dawson High School in the greater Houston area. “Integrating live captions into curricula that have now moved entirely online ensures we are compliant with federal accessibility laws and helps all students better capture and comprehend valuable material, no matter the situation.”

“Without prior infrastructure for distance learning, K-12 educators are scrambling to figure out how to effectively continue lessons amidst a host of obstacles due to the Coronavirus pandemic. Part of that challenge includes making online content accessible and compliant for students,” said Jason Chicola, Co-founder and CEO of Rev.com. “We’re glad to be able to offer our highly accurate speech recognition engine at no cost to ensure the accessibility of learning content and improve comprehension for all students.”

With education moving into the home full-time, it has never been more important to support educators, students and parents with the tools they need to adapt to a broad range of needs and circumstances. Live captions can be an integral part of the education process, including:

• Inclusion and accessibility: As classrooms move online and into the home, live captions ensure that videos are accessible to all students, including those that are deaf and hard of hearing.
• Improved Focus: Virtual learning is new to many K-12 students, some of whom may be experiencing increased distractions at home. Live captions help to ensure students will not miss out on any of the educational material.
• Improved retention: The combination of audio and visual creates an optimal learning environment for students. The U.S. Department of Labor tested research subjects’ recall for information delivered orally, visually, or both orally and visually. They found that oral-only instruction had a retention rate of 10%, visual-only instruction had a retention rate of 35%, and the combination of both visual and oral instruction resulted in a 65% retention rate.
• Support for ESL and Foreign Language Students: There are more than 4.9 million students in the U.S. whose first language is not English. Captions are a powerful way to help non-native speakers fully grasp course material no matter where they’re learning from.
• Straightforward learning: Inaccurate captions can misinform and confuse students. It’s critical to choose a provider with the tools and expertise to provide consistently accurate automated captions.

Rev’s simple setup for live captions on Zoom allows educators to provide students with accessible material without taking up too much of their limited time. Educators have the ability to offer the option for live captions to all attendees, and each student can choose to have their own captions on or off on both desktop and mobile devices.

For more information, visit Rev’s blog.

About Rev
Rev is the largest and most popular voice-to-text service in the world with more than 170,000 customers globally. Recognized widely as the most accurate and fastest service of its kind, Rev helps anyone capture insights from voice, connect with audiences and turbocharge productivity. Powered by a large and vibrant community of freelancers, Rev uses artificial intelligence tools to turn speech into text at unparalleled low cost. The company is obsessed with making the power of voice accessible to everyone, all while creating fulfilling work-from-home jobs. Learn more at rev.com.

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SOURCE Rev.com, Inc