[ARCHIVED] HELP!! - Math and Jaws

[sarah_mcmanus]

Do any of your students use Jaws to read math equations produced by the Canvas math equation editor?  I cannot get it to read the equations (e.g., quadratic formula) properly.  HELP!!!

[jeb5123]

Hi Sarah,

Do you have a screenshot of the equation you can share?

Is this in the equation creation process, or after it is saved to a page/other?

The equations that are created through the equation editor should be adding a minimum of LaTex as the alt text of the equation, and a maximum of integrating a MathML version of the equation after the image as screenreader only content when a page/question text/etc. is saved.

I'm just wondering what the context where you cannot get the equation to read is.

[sarah_mcmanus]

Here is a video of how Jaws is reading the equations I created using the math editor. This is confusing for students.

I have heard that installing MathPlayer will help. I tried installing MathPlayer yesterday but it would not install properly. I am going to try again.

Sarah McManus, Ph.D.

Director | Digital Learning

Education Services for the Deaf and Blind

North Carolina Department of Public Instruction

Raleigh, NC

919-715-1476

Visit us on the website at www.ncpublicschools.org<http://www.ncpublicschools.org/>.

**All e-mail correspondence to and from this address is subject to the North Carolina Public Records Law, which may result in monitoring and disclosure to third parties, including law enforcement**

[jeb5123]

Hi Sarah,

I don't see a video in your post. Can you host it on Youtube and include it so that I can hear?

[jeb5123]

Hi again,

Sorry, someone just pointed out that the PPT contains audio to me.

Did you create all 3 of those equations into one Equation image or did you create each one individually using the equation editor?

[sarah_mcmanus]

Each one separately.

Sent from my Verizon Wireless 4G LTE smartphone

[sarah_mcmanus]

It is a ppt with a screen capture.  Try to access it here:

https://esdbncdpincgov-my.sharepoint.com/personal/esdbadmin_esdbnc_dpi_nc_gov/_layouts/15/guestacces...

[szw151 · Accepted solution]

Sarah, I think the reason the MathML is not generating for you is that you are adding spaces in your equations. If you type 2 + 2 = 4 instead of 2+2=4, the spaces will interfere with the math code being generated.

[sarah_mcmanus]

Thank you for the advice! I will delete the spaces and see how it works.

Sent from my Verizon Wireless 4G LTE smartphone

[sarah_mcmanus]

Thank you again for your help.  Do you know how to get the screen reader to read 5! as 5 factorial?

[szw151]

My screen reader says, "five exclaim" no matter how I put 5! on the page. And that is true in Canvas and in our other content management system that supports math code. I tried MathMl there and text and LaTeX in Canvas via the math editor. I think that's because the exclamation point is set in JAWS settings to read as "exclaim" and JAWS can't read it differently just because it's next to a number. You can change the settings so that JAWS says "factorial" when it comes to a !, but then it would read them all that way even when they are not used in a math context. I would love to know if someone else has a solution for this.