[nabs-l] Math-to-Speech technology project

Thu May 26 21:33:51 UTC 2011

Kevin,
Oh my; as far as I know bringing a brailler is a common practice. I don't 
know who is giving you problems, but I'd say go up the chain and if you 
still have issues, file a complaint with the US Dept of ED civil rights 
division.

-----Original Message----- 
From: Kevin Fjelsted
Sent: Thursday, May 26, 2011 1:01 PM
To: National Association of Blind Students mailing list
Subject: Re: [nabs-l] Math-to-Speech technology project

An interesting corollary on this whole thing although it may not see to be 
related but I experiencing increasing resistance in testing centers when I 
tell them I need to bring a Braille Writer in order to solve math problems.
If we are not virulent we will be locked out of testing centers when we 
insist on Braille either reading or writing.

-Kevin

On May 26, 2011, at 11:27 AM, Loew, Ruth wrote:

> New Math-to-Speech Technologies to Help Blind and Visually Impaired 
> Students Master Mathematics
>
> Princeton, N.J. (May 24, 2011) -
> Educational Testing Service (ETS) and Design Science have announced they 
> are working jointly to modify MathType(tm) and MathPlayer(tm), so that 
> classroom materials, tests and other documents containing mathematical 
> content may be clearly spoken by computers. This new math-to-speech 
> technology will provide students who are blind or have other visual 
> impairments the tools they need to learn, practice, and take math and 
> science tests on a more equal footing with their classroom peers.
> Some of the country's leading subject-matter experts and developers of 
> assistive technology for students who are blind or visually impaired will 
> assist on the project which begins July 1, 2011, and is supported by a 
> $1.5 million Institute of Education Sciences grant.
> "Existing assistive technology that provides synthetic speech for 
> electronic text does at best a limited job of making math accessible for 
> this group of students," explains Lois Frankel, an ETS Assessment 
> Specialist and the leader of the effort. "The current technology falls 
> short because it generally does not 'know' how to describe mathematical 
> expressions, especially in a way that provides access to their nonlinear 
> structure.
> "ETS and Design Science will work together to enhance MathPlayer, the tool 
> that voices the math encoded in MathML, so that it sounds more like what 
> students - particularly those in Algebra I - are used to hearing," Frankel 
> says. "We also plan to work on a number of customizations to MathType, 
> including a feature to allow teachers and other users to select how 
> mathematical expressions are described. For example, they could select 
> whether the machine says 'four over five' or 'four fifths.' Another 
> customization we plan to add is keyboard navigation that allows blind or 
> visually impaired users to go back and replay voiced segments in 
> mathematically meaningful 'chunks.' Our goal is to provide students and 
> teachers with a better system for voicing mathematical notation that 
> includes some truly useful functionality."
> "It has been a long-term Design Science goal to make math accessible, and 
> our team has been working hard at it for over six years," said Neil 
> Soiffer, Senior Scientist at Design Science. "It's a great opportunity to 
> be partnering with an organization the stature and importance of ETS, to 
> push the state-of-the-art forward."
> Working with Frankel and Soiffer on the effort are ETS Assessment 
> Specialist Beth Brownstein, Research Scientist Eric Hansen, and Senior 
> Research Scientist Cara Laitusis. Among the other organizations and 
> consultants who will take part in the project are:
> *
>
> De Witt & Associates, specializes in accessibility training, learning 
> systems and support, and will provide advice on the implementation of 
> MathML accessibility tools and assist in the development of training 
> modules for students and teachers.
> *       GW Micro, a leading firm in the adaptive technology industry, will 
> modify its Window-Eyes screen reader software to work seamlessly with the 
> tools developed by the project.
> *       Jim Allan, the accessibility coordinator and webmaster for the 
> Texas School for the Blind and Visually Impaired.
> *       Maylene Bird, a teacher of mathematics to visually impaired 
> students at the Texas School for the Blind and Visually Impaired.
> *       Christine Hinton, a Program Development Specialist for the New 
> Jersey Commission for the Blind and Visually Impaired, will help recruit 
> student participants from inclusive schools in New Jersey.
> *       Gaylen Kapperman, a professor with a visual disability, with 
> specialization in research and development projects pertaining to 
> mathematics instruction and assistive technology used by individuals who 
> are blind or are visually impaired.
> *       Abraham Nemeth, the author of The Nemeth Braille Code for 
> Mathematics and Science Notation and a blind expert in making mathematics 
> accessible to blind individuals.
> *       Susan Osterhaus, a secondary mathematics teacher and statewide 
> math accessibility expert at the Texas School for the Blind and Visually 
> Impaired.
> "The criteria for success in this project will be three-fold," explains 
> Marisa Farnum, Vice President of Assessment Development at ETS. "First, 
> will students using the tailored tools over the status quo be better able 
> to solve algebra problems at an appropriate level? And, are they better 
> able to correctly identify the structure of algebra-level math expressions 
> when using the tools? Second, will math teachers be able to use the 
> authoring tools developed by this project to quickly and easily create 
> math materials that are accessible to their students with visual 
> impairments? And finally, do the teachers and students who participate as 
> subjects in these development efforts find the tools provided usable and 
> convenient?"
> About ETS
> At nonprofit ETS, we advance quality and equity in education for people 
> worldwide by creating assessments based on rigorous research. ETS serves 
> individuals, educational institutions and government agencies by providing 
> customized solutions for teacher certification, English language learning, 
> and elementary, secondary and post-secondary education, as well as 
> conducting education research, analysis and policy studies. Founded in 
> 1947, ETS develops, administers and scores more than 50 million tests 
> annually - including the TOEFL(r) and TOEIC(r) tests, the GRE(r) tests and 
> The Praxis Series(tm) assessments - in more than 180 countries, at over 
> 9,000 locations worldwide. www.ets.org<http://www.ets.org/>.
>
> About Design Science
> Founded in 1986 and headquartered in Long Beach, California, Design 
> Science develops software used by educators, scientists and publishing 
> professionals, including MathType, Equation Editor in Microsoft Office, 
> MathFlow, MathDaisy and MathPlayer, to communicate on the web and in 
> print. For more information please visit 
> www.dessci.com<http://www.dessci.com/>.
>
> Ruth C. Loew, Ph.D.
> Assistant Director
> Office of Disability Policy, ETS
> phone: 609-683-2984
> fax: 609-683-2220
>
>
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