Students at Cal State San Marcos Extended Learning Explore Voice to Text Captioning as
Career Demand Grow
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE (Download Release - PDF)
November 24, 2008
San Marcos, Calif. (November 24, 2008) – Cal State San Marcos Extended Learning is offering an open enrollment certificate program to train students in the fast growing field of Closed Captioning: Voice to Text Conversion. Captioning, the act of converting voice to text, is a burgeoning profession and certified students will be able to help people with physical or learning disabilities to communicate, learn and work more efficiently. In the United States, over 28 million people (1 in 10) have a learning disability and that number continues to grow increasing the need for closed captioning professionals.
Students will learn to use an exciting and emerging technology – voice recognition software. When put to use, this technology offers many students who are deaf, are non native speakers, or have certain learning disabilities, the opportunity to attend college and receive the same education as those with normal hearing.
In the fall of 1997, Renee Cohen, an instructor at Cal State San Marcos Extended Learning and CEO of eCaptions, launched her own captioning business to fill a void within our college system and to offer the service to students in need. She has since grown the company and struggles to fill the demand with so few certified individuals.
The Closed Captioning course is available online and can be accessed 24/7. The average student is able to complete the course and begin working within a six month period. However, there have been students to complete the course in as quickly as six weeks; actual completion depends on the individual’s level of commitment.
For more information, please contact Cal State San Marcos Extended Learning at (760) 750-4020 or online at www.csusm.edu/el and search “voice to text.”
