Speaker 1: Hi, everyone. My name is Mary Fruits and I am the staff interpreter for WESP DHH Outreach. Today I want to share with you a little bit about interpreting virtually, some tips and tricks for being on screen. With the COVID-19 pandemic going on, a lot of us are staying at home and working virtually. Unfortunately, we've never done this in our lives before and we're not sure what to do. And so I'm going to share with you some ideas today that we've collected through outreach and from my personal experience, over eight years of experience as a VRS interpreter, and what you can do when you're working virtually. So let's start. Here's the overview of what we're going to go through today. First, we're going to talk about clothing and background and lighting. Then we're going to talk about some programs that we can use. We're going to talk about captioning videos because that's a frequently asked question from many interpreters because it's a new task that many of us are facing. And also we're going to talk about some general information. So first, let's talk about clothing. What can we wear and what can't we wear? We have to remember that the virtual world is very different from the real world. Some interpreters get very comfortable with their clients and their clients get very comfortable with them. And so we get a little loosey goosey on the things that we can wear when we're in an interpreting environment. However, when we're in a 2D environment, that's very different. And so we have to be conscious of that. Some of the things we have to think about that we should not be wearing on screen is patterns. Other things we should be thinking about are colors that match our skin tone. And then we want to think about those typical interpreter rules for wearing clothing that we learned in our ITP, whether that ITP was recently or many, many years ago, like some of us think about the colors that we talked about. So things like your dark blues, your blacks, your grays, your dark greens, even some deep purples are perfectly okay to wear on screen. But always make sure you're self-monitoring and making sure that that color is a good match for your skin tone. Again, if you're an interpreter of color, make sure that you're matching with a lighter color that will be contrasting to your skin tone. Remember, red is very difficult to see on screen, especially for people who experience deafblindness. And so that might be a very difficult color for them to see. Remember that what you can wear in person may not be something that you can wear on screen. So for example, in this picture below, you can see that I'm wearing something that doesn't really work very well on screen. However, in real life, this shirt is perfectly fine for me to wear. And so these are things that we have to be conscious about when we're going in the 2D environment. Again, think about those typical interpreter rules. But one of the things that we don't have to follow when we're working virtually is we don't have to dress up in dress pants. So have fun with your pants when you're working virtually. Be in your yoga pants, be in your stretchy pants, be in your pajama pants, whatever. Be comfortable. But be aware that if you're standing up, people are going to see those things. So just some things to think about when you're working. Now let's talk about backgrounds. Backgrounds are very important when you're working in a 2D environment. You'll want to think about having a solid wall or hanging behind you that contrasts with your hand color or your clothing. And so an example of this background that I have here, you can still see my black shirt as opposed to the background. You can still see my hands very well. Even in the picture on the left here where I have more of a neutral color background, that's still pretty decent that you can still see my hands. However, there is another example that I have for you where it didn't work. And let me pull that up for you. Just one moment. Let me find where I'm at here. Here we go. So here's an environment that I worked in recently. And there was not a good choice on background color. As you can see, my hands are blending into the background. Although the background was a beautiful background, and we thought it would be a great match for the clothing that's being worn and the environment that we were in, once we started into the recording, we realized that that color did not work out. So again, think about those contrasting colors that will work with the clothing that you're wearing and the environment that you're in. One moment, let me get back to our here we whoops. Not the right one. I know what I need to do, though. So just one moment. Here we go. Alright, so background. In the past, some of the things that I have done is stayed against a dark colored wall. A lot of people like to use their accent wall that they might have in their house. You can use that. Again, be conscious of the color, though, if it's a red wall, that's not going to work. Some people have taken just a basic sheet and taken thumbtacks up to their ceiling and have it hanging down. That works. So those are all things that you have to consider when you're thinking about backgrounds. When thinking about backgrounds, that leads us to lighting. And some of the things you want to be conscious of is backlighting and front lighting. For example, in this first picture on the left, you can see that I'm standing right in front of a light. That is horrible backlighting. That is giving me a halo effect, and it's extremely bright and difficult to see. In the second picture on the right, you can see that there's backlighting, which is also making me very dark and difficult to see. So you want to think about those things. Another thing that you can add to your lighting is a front light. So often in 2D environments, we might add a lamp or another kind of light that's coming from the front, as opposed from the back, so that you're getting the lighting on your face that makes you easy to see. Make sure that you're not in a dark room and that you have plenty of lighting. Some of you might have noticed in the pictures here that I'm wearing glasses, and I'm not wearing them now. But why is that? Well, I noticed that when I put them on when I was starting my video today, there's a horrible glare in my glasses, and it's really difficult to see my eyes. And so I've decided to take my glasses off so that my eyes can be more readily seen while doing the video. And that's something that you might want to think about as well. Be careful of your camera angle. That's very important when you're in a 2D environment. You want to make sure that you have a nice straight on camera angle, that you're not taking a video from down here and people are looking up your face, or people are looking down on your face, because some of your facial features might be missed that are essential to communication. So make sure that you have a good level at camera angle. Make sure that you're not sitting in front of a window like I am in the second picture on the right here. Again, you can see my skin tone changed by a vast amount. And it's not my actual skin tone. But again, it makes me very difficult to see. And so that backlighting again with the natural light can make it tough. 2Ds and 3D environments, you have to remember we are working from home, we're working virtually. And so we want to pick a nice, private, quiet place to work with minimal distractions. Many of us are at home and we have children, we have pets, or we even have other things that are going on in the background that might be distracting to us or consumers who are going to be using our services. So make sure that you're in a nice quiet environment. Also make sure that you're aware of your spatial space use. So make sure that you have a nice signing area, that you're not signing off of your area where your camera is, and that you have a nice view from about your forehead to mid to lower chest. Okay. Also, there are many other struggles with the 2D environment. And the most important one that everybody loves to hate is technology. One of the things to think about when you're dealing with technology, if you're working with a computer or a laptop, if you're struggling with freezing or other types of things like that, are you on a Wi-Fi network? Or are you directly plugged into your router? Directly plugging into your router with a hardwire might make your connection better, and then your video won't freeze as much. If you're forced to use a phone, know which service works better for you, your Wi-Fi or your cellular service. Sometimes one works better than the other, which can make your connection better or worse. So just some things to think about technology-wise. All right, so what kind of programs can we use when we're doing 2D or virtual interpreting? Zoom is a really popular one that's being used a lot by a lot of different people right now. The beautiful part is, as an educational interpreter, you probably have an educational school email address, and so you can sign up for Zoom for free. Currently, because of the COVID-19 pandemic, they are making their service free, and they're lifting the limit that they typically have on people who are using the service. It used to be that you could only have a 40-minute limit when you're using Zoom, but now you can use it for as long as you need to. And so that's a beautiful thing for those of us that are having to work from home. Although some of us might think of it as a little old-school, Skype is still out there, and Skype is a wonderful service to use if you're familiar with it and you know what you're doing, and it's a wonderful face-to-face service to use. Google Duo is an app that you can download on your phone, and it's a great app to use if you're using a different type of device than the person that you're communicating with. So for example, if you're using an iPhone and the other person is using a Droid type of device, you can't use FaceTime. So Duo is a wonderful app that you can use to connect a Droid or an iPhone. I use this personally with my family, and I love it because I'm still able to talk to them face-to-face. Google Hangout is another option for those of you that have Gmail. You can use that, and all you're going to do is, under your mailboxes here, you're going to go to where your name is and click on the plus right here where I have my pointer, and then you're going to have a list of people. You can click on it, and there's a little camera that you click on, and then that brings up a conversation with the person that you're trying to talk with. So this is a great, handy, quick to use, and especially if you both have Gmail, it's simple. FaceTime is available for those of us that are Apple users, so whether you're using an iPad, an iMac, an iPhone, you can connect with another Apple user with that. And from my understanding, you can use FaceTime with more than one person now, so that might be an option for you. Another option that we've learned about is Loom, and Loom is a service, I'm pulling up the site here for you, that you can make videos as well. From my understanding, those who are using Loom find it easy to use. It's quick, simple, not have to be real tech savvy to be able to use it, and so take a look at this. It looks like it's free. It says get Loom for free here. It's a free service to use that might be easier for you to use than other services, so take a look at that. Another one here is the Screencast-O-Matic. Again, another tool that you can use to make videos. From my understanding, you can use this, I need to create videos for work, I'm an educator, I'm a developer, so there's different ways you can use this software or this tool to make videos. And again, it's just another thing where you can record on your screen, you can edit the video, and you can share the videos quickly. From the people who have shared this with me, they've said it's quick and easy, even easier than Zoom or other products that are out there. So now let's talk about captioning, because a lot of people have said, well, now my administrators or my teachers are asking me to caption videos, and so I'm going to talk a little bit about some options out there. YouTube is an option for captioning videos. I found YouTube to be quite simple to use. All you have to do is upload your video to YouTube, then you go into the YouTube Studio. There you can edit your video if necessary, and then there'll be a menu on the left, and there'll be different options, and one of them is either Subtitles or Caption. Click on there, you'll pick the language that you want to caption the language into, and then click Add, and then it'll give you three options as to how you want to add the captions. You can upload a file, so for example, if you have a transcript and you want to upload that transcript, you can use the transcript. It says you can then transcribe and auto-sync, or you can actually type in the captions, listen to a little bit of audio, pause it, type in what you hear, and then unpause it, listen to a little bit, type in what you hear, and then you can move it so that it matches the video. I have found this personally easy to use, other people have not. Again, this is an option. You need to explore your options. Most importantly, once you're done adding these captions into your video, you want to make sure you click the Publish button, and it'll be a button when you're on your screen, it's a little button up to the right of your video. One of the things I've personally found is if you use a laptop and you're using a trackpad for your mouse, make sure that you're not using a two-finger swipe, either forward or backwards, when you're trying to move the video, so you'll have the video and the scroll bar underneath the video, you cannot use the two-finger swipe on that, because your laptop will probably read that as a back button or a forward button. If you do that and you go back or you go forward, you might lose your captions, so just be conscious of that. Here's another option, which is the Described and Captioned Media Program. This is a website that has multiple videos already captioned on their website. It's a library, very easy to use, very simple, and actually it's free for educators, so as an educational interpreter, you can sign up for this, and then you can explore all the different kinds of videos that are available. Here I have the sign up for it, again, very simple, name, email address, you do have to create a username and things like that, but then you get to the next page and you would click here, I qualify and would like to apply for access to the full library of media. This is something you can share with your teachers and they can look through the library and see what videos they might want to apply to their lessons. Another option for captioning that we've learned about is Capwing. Again, we've been told that this is a very simple tool to use, even more easy than the YouTube captioning is, and it's just adding text to video, but you can also add text to pictures or to GIFs as well. So again, look at these different types of tools that we're providing you, see what is going to be best for you. Here's some general information. Remember to always follow your school policies. Make sure you know what they are. There are some schools out there that are not allowing their faculty to use Zoom, so make sure that if you want to use Zoom, that that's allowed by your school policy. Make sure that you're remembering your professional lines. Remember, you are a professional, and so always appear professional and make sure that you are keeping that professional line there as an interpreter. Make sure that you have open communication with your staff, your faculty, your teachers, and your parents. Make sure that you're using platforms and different types of tools that the parents want to use, that they're familiar with, because if you can use a type of device, but your parents can't, it might be difficult for you to connect with your students. So try and find something that works for both you and the parents, and that the school is okay with. Remember that this is a new experience for many, many people out there. There are educational interpreters all over the United States who have never worked in a 2D environment before, and that's okay. It's a learning experience, and this is the time for us to share our thoughts, ideas, feedback, things that we found, tools that we use to help others, and sometimes help ourselves. Make sure that you're searching out other educational interpreters on social media, and here are some options for you if you're a Facebook user for different Facebook pages that you can look for. And then also, as another piece of information, you can go to the National Deaf Center. The National Deaf Center has a lot of information out there about the COVID-19 right now, talking about accessibility, about captioning, about interpreters, remote interpreting services, tips. So this is a great resource for you to be able to look through. I know this is all very overwhelming, and there's a ton of information out there. Please don't feel that way. Please, if you're overwhelmed, take a breath. Know that you're not alone, and reach out to outreach because we are here for you. We have a plethora of resources and information, and your feedback is always welcome as well. I want to click on this link right here real quick for you so that you can see. Here are all of our staff who work for outreach. Now, one person who's very important here for educational interpreters that I want to point out here is Keith. Keith is my co-worker, and he is the know-it of being an interpreter in Wisconsin as an educational interpreter. He's a former educational interpreter himself, and now is our interpreter specialist, and he just is a wealth of information from working in the classroom to your EIPA to workshops that are coming along. Please, if you have any questions, ideas, anything that's going on, you can contact Keith, and Keith can help you. If you have more questions about working in the 2D environment, and you want to have a conversation with me, here is my contact information as well. Along with on this page are our consultants who are available for trainings, for consultations with your students, and there's other people on here, our office assistants and technology people. We are all here to help you, so please know that. Also, if you'd like to join our e-blast or be a part of our Canvas learning community, you can go here to our link here and very simply sign up. All you're going to do for the Wisconsin Deaf Educational Professional Canvas community is click here to join now, and then once you do that, then you're just going to fill out the simple form. You can put that you're an interpreter or whatever kind of professional you are that works with students who are deaf, hard of hearing, or deafblind, and then make sure that you submit, and then we'll get your name added to our Canvas community as well. And on our Canvas page, we have so much information right now. People are sharing ideas and thoughts and tools and resources, and again, it's there's just so much out there, and this is a great place for you to go. One last website here I want to share with you is our Wakelet page, and this page has a great deal of information and resources as well for working with those in a virtual environment. So we have accessibility, we have apps, we have early childhood resources, the list goes on and on. So again, a lot of information out there. It can seem very overwhelming. Take your time, know what's going on in your environment, be patient, and make sure you're finding what works best for you. If you have any questions or have any feedback, please don't hesitate to reach out to myself or to Keith or any of our other outreach staff. I hope this was a helpful video for all of you. Thank you so much for joining, and have a great day.