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

Tue May 31 22:56:57 UTC 2011

Heck, talk to one of the NFB leaders, or somebody in the advocacy 
department, and they might help you in the advocacy at your 
testing center on behalf of the Federation.

 Chris

"A loss of sight, never a loss of vision!" (Camp Abilities motto)

--- Sent from my BrailleNote

 ----- Original Message -----
From: <bookwormahb at earthlink.net
To: "National Association of Blind Students mailing list" 
<nabs-l at nfbnet.org
Date sent: Thu, 26 May 2011 17:33:51 -0400
Subject: Re: [nabs-l] Math-to-Speech technology project

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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