Making Math Accessible

Kentucky AHEAD Conference, May 20-21, 2008

I will be giving a presentation during the 2008 conference of the Kentucky Association on Higher Education and Disability, which is being held May 20-21 in Carrollton, Kentucky. The KY-AHEAD conference theme this year is Re-Tooling the Disability Services Toolbox. My session is entitled Technology for Accessible Math, and is scheduled for May 21 at 10:30 AM. I'll be talking about the expanding toolbox of assistive technology products that support accessible math, as well as the new functionality we are developing for MathPlayer, such as customized math speech and Nemeth braille output. For information on this and other conferences where we will be speaking or exhibiting, see our Events Schedule.

"Save As DAISY" is Here and Support for Math is Next

It's been widely heralded and now it's officially here:  Microsoft's and DAISY's "Save As DAISY XML" Word add-in has moved from being a beta to being official.  You can get it from http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=208610. DAISY's official press release will give you more details.

Now that this release is out, Microsoft and DAISY have begun the requirements process for what goes into version 2.  They have already said that supporting math is planned for the next version. Needless to say, we're working with them to make sure support for MathType and Equation Editor equations will be seamless and rock solid.   Version two probably won't be out until the fall, but I'm sure there will be beta releases well before then.

Math in DAISY is encoded as MathML. The details for this are described in the MathML in DAISY Modular Extension that was approved last year by the DAISY board. With MathML, math is fully accessible.  Download MathPlayer from our website and see for yourself what can be done to make math encoded in MathML accessible.

The math accessibility train is really chugging along.

Kentucky Promotes Use of MathML in Textbook Adoption

It is always nice to be the bearer of good news. Well...I've got GREAT news today! The Kentucky Department of Education has announced that the state will grant preferential procurement status to math textbook titles submitted by publishers who use Mathematical Markup Language (MathML). That's right -- publishers who create digital math content using MathML will get a leg up in the competition over textbooks made the old fashioned way with graphic images. And the reason, of course, is accessibility. So, for all you advocates of math accessibility out there, here's a reason to celebrate!

Kentucky's move to promote math accessibility is something every state should put into place. So be sure to tell your state education leaders about Kentucky's progress on getting accessible math in the classroom. Will your state be next? With your help, it can be! Read more about this great development on our Accessibility News page.