 All right, math nerds, let's listen up here. One of the problems with math in documents is accessibility. You can imagine as a screen reader goes across reading text and then suddenly runs into some complex equation, it's going to read it probably fairly literally, which is going to sound like nonsense. So the company called TextHelp is working on that problem on how to create that kind of information that is accessible to the blind and visually impaired. And I'm talking to Rachel Cruzel from TextHelp and she's going to describe the problem to be solved because she has lived how hard it is to create this kind of content. I have, absolutely. So the tool is called EquatIO and what it's doing is it's helping create accessible and digital math and STEM content. Prior to this tool coming out, it's been a challenge in our field to do so, to ensure that the content is accessible for people with disabilities. So what we can do with this tool is typically we'd be trying to create it excessively using a padlet-based tool, which can take time, sort of that hunt and peck method. Instead with EquatIO, it's based on keyboard strokes as well as being able to have word prediction built in to be able to quickly and easily reference and add in equations instead. So I'm going to jump to the last question I asked you when we did our pre-interview, which was this is a web-based tool? Yep. This is a web-based tool, works in Chrome, also is desktop as well, so it can work on the Windows desktop or the Mac desktop and goes into a bunch of different places online and on the web as well. Did you say Linux as well the first time? No Linux. Okay, but it's got, but it's a Chrome extension, so. Correct. All right, so we're going to take a look at this for those who are, are watching. She's going up to a, it's kind of a panel that has come up from the bottom of her screen in Chrome and it says Math and she's going to start typing an equation here. Type us something. I'm going to type in something like the speed of sound. So I can type in the word SP or start to type the word speed in and on screen here it's going to bring up this prediction of what I might be trying to type for speed of light. So instead of having to know the equation or having to type in each individual character in a matter of seconds with just typing an SP, I can grab this equation, which what it's going to mean. Hang on, she's got speed, it shows speed of light, speed of sound, spring, potential energy, speed of a periodic wave. There's a whole bunch of them in here. We actually have recently added over 235 physics formulas just in and of itself. We're constantly... Nice. For all that string theory I'm working on. There you go. Yes, exactly. Then I can simply and easily hit the enter key. My equation is in here. It's a C equals 3.00 times 10 to the 8th meters per second. Yep. And then from there I can easily toggle through the equation. I can change any of the variables, any of the numbers, if and when I'm ready. We're not ready to change the speed of light. So we'll keep going. Correct. I'm thinking if you were using like a quadratic equation and you wanted to change a variable there. Go ahead, sing the quadratic equation song for us. You know you want to. I do want to, but I'm not going to. Maybe for the outtakes. Okay. If and when you're ready to go, you can click the insert math button wherever your cursor is on your screen. It will insert that math into the Word document, the Google document, the third party website, the learning management system. That's an image though. Now how does that help the blind if you just turned a text into an image? That's a good question. So with something like a text-to-speech tool, by adding in an image we're able to have that text-to-speech tool read the alternative text because in the alternative text there is actually the spoken title, the spoken language of how it's read as well as we do put the MathML in there as well. So hang on. How did it know the alt text? So she just brought up the alt text and it says C equals 3.00 times 10 to the 8th power M over S. How did it get that? So we have it written in such a way, our software, I'm not our product manager, but it will automatically put the alt text into. I could have written an equation of my own and it would have done that. Correct. It would have done that. And MathML I had never heard of before, but explain that to us again. What is that? So MathML is math, markup language, and it's a way for content creators to create math that is done in a way that makes it easy to hear, read aloud, specifically for people who are blind or low vision. Our software... Never heard of that. Why do I not know about that? Gotta go read up. It's a good one for sure to know about, but I can take this equation that I've used, that I entered in, the speed of light for example. We do have this copy as button which allows me to actually export this not just as an image, but in LaTeX, in MathML, in that spoken text. And then I could take this MathML version of it. I could plop it into something like a Word document and I could then export it to something like Duxbury to get either my Nemeth code or my UED Braille for someone who is blind or low vision. She's not making up words. I don't know why she lost me at that term. Basically, if we have to create digital math or STEM content for someone who is blind or low vision, this tool will help with that process. Normally it's really time intensive and laborious to do. This will typically cut down that time in about two-thirds. So I used to do this work myself. You know the pain. I know the pain well and I know that we do not provide enough access for students who need support. And if it's a pain and it takes a long time, people won't do it if it's easy and comes along for the ride they will. Bingo. Exactly. Very cool. So Equatio, you're going to have to spell that for the audience. Just like the word equation without the N, E-Q-U-A-T-I-O. Okay. And how do you sell this? So we sell it in a variety of different ways, typically into the education space. We can do single licenses for individual learners, do group licenses for a group of students or what we see a lot is, again, that having it for every student, teacher, in higher ed, K-12, because really it's going to create accessible content everywhere for every learner. So why wouldn't I just want it as a regular human writing equations though? You could absolutely use it as a regular human writing equations to be more accessible. I mean, that's where we ought to be going is what I'm thinking. What does an individual license cost? Typically about a hundred bucks a year. That's not bad. I really did not expect, I don't think there's anything in this entire conference for a hundred dollars a year. I think we just found the least expensive tool. This is really, really interesting. Thank you so much for showing us. This is something my audience will definitely get a big kick out of and maybe some people would start using it. Thank you very much. Thank you for featuring us. And the company is Tech-Telp. Tech-Telp. And where would we find them? Tech-Telp.com, T-E-X-T-H-E-L-P.com. Simple enough. Thank you very much, Rachel. Thank you. Well, I couldn't get Rachel to sing but she did give us two more really important tidbits after we stopped recording. What did you just tell us? So any person can go on our website, Tech-Telp.com and get a free 30-day trial to try the tool out. And if you are a K-12 educator, you do qualify for a free-for-teacher license, which means you do get the software for free for use in your school or district. Woo-hoo! That's what I'm talking about. That's better than a song. It is better than a song. And it saves you all for my singing.