[Athen] Students with Learning Disabilities and Textbooks withMath

[Sean J Keegan]

I am not sure if this is a specific problem with Read Hear or if the 
recorded TTS voice was not great.  I will have to test with a better 
SAPI 5 voice later today.  From past testing, I have found nearly all 
the DAISY readers that support MathML seem to say "mathematical 
expression" just prior to and following the math equation when using the 
recorded TTS; some are more intelligible than others.  I was surprised, 
pleasantly, to find that you did not get this additional text 
information when using the OS X voice Alex.

Take care,
sean


On 2/9/13 6:27 AM, Ron Stewart wrote:

> Sean have you contacted Gh about this problem?  Have you had a similar

> experience with the Windows version of the problem.

>

> Ron Stewart

>

> -----Original Message-----

> From: athen-list-bounces at mailman1.u.washington.edu

> [mailto:athen-list-bounces at mailman1.u.washington.edu] On Behalf Of Sean J

> Keegan

> Sent: Friday, February 08, 2013 5:54 PM

> To: petri.1 at osu.edu; Access Technology Higher Education Network

> Subject: Re: [Athen] Students with Learning Disabilities and Textbooks

> withMath

>

> I had an older version of the Read Hear player for Mac that did not do

> MathML, but the latest version seems to be very robust.  You can play a

> DAISY book with either the book's TTS or the OS X voice and both seem to

> work well.

>

> If you are using the book's TTS audio, it does say "mathematical expression"

> at the beginning and end of each equation.  At least I think it is saying

> "mathematical expression".  For some reason, the book's audio TTS sounds

> like it's had a long night drinking at the bar and the audio is not so

> intelligible.  The math is good, it's just the very beginning and end of the

> equation.

>

> The OS X TTS voice Alex is very responsive and seems to handle a variety of

> math equations.  So far, I have tried basic and intermediate algebraic

> equations and it seems to handle the markup just fine.

> Overall, nice support.  Will try with some of the other free OS X voices.

>

> I have found that the application does not do well with a math-based

> DTBook.xml file.  If using a DAISY book, then all is good, but using

> DTBook.xml files seems to break the math.  I used DTBook.xml files as

> generated from the Save-as-Daisy plug-in for MS Word.

>

> If you are creating DAISY books with MathML content and the student is using

> a Mac, then Read Hear is the way to go at this point.  ePub support is

> listed as "soon" and there is no indication as to what version of ePub or if

> that implementation will support math content.

>

> Take care,

> Sean

> --

> Sean Keegan

> Associate Director, Assistive Technology Office of Accessible Education -

> Stanford University http://studentaffairs.stanford.edu/oae

>

> On 2/7/13 7:47 PM, Ken Petri wrote:

>> Definitely agree with Ron on this one. There needs to be a

>> non-MathPlayer dependent/cross platform MathML player available.

>> PTReader uses Charles Chen's Firefox libraries, which I don't think

>> are still being maintained. However, it would be a shame to see the

>> work go to waste. We need the same thing for EPUB3.

>>

>> gh's ReadHear uses MathPlayer on Windows but also claims to support

>> MathML on Mac:

>>

>> http://www.ghbraille.com/software/readhear-mac-instant-download

>>

>> We've liked ReadHear for Windows. Haven't tried it on the Mac, so

>> don't know it's sophistication with MathML.

>>

>>

>>

>>

>> ken

>> --

>> Ken Petri

>> Program Director, OSU Web Accessibility Center 102D Pomerene Hall,

>> 1760 Neil Avenue, Columbus, Ohio  43210

>> Office: 614.292.1760 | Mobile: 614.218.1499 | Fax: 614.292.4190

>> http://wac.osu.edu | petri.1 at osu.edu <mailto:petri.1 at osu.edu>

>>

>>