Meeting minutes
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Interactive Orthography Presentation by David Boulton
David: Part of the time will background, then outlining the issue, then showing a demo to solve the issue
… this is specific to English, but English is spoken around the world and most other languages have similar issues, but not to the same extent
… the orthography itself is the most prevelant info tech we use today
Suzanne: What is orthography?
David: The whole mechanism of sounds, letters, words and how they fit together
… As of Feb 2020 lastest NAEP evaluation...
… majority of students are not ready to read at the grade level
… reading is slowing learning
… This is definitely worse for students of color
… There consequences are more than just learning, it causes psychological issues as well, creating aquired learning disabilities
Video: numerous experts highlight the complexity and issues caused by English itself
… demo shows that even just the letter a has a wide variety of functions
… and continues through other similar examples of oddities in English use of letter, even in elementary words
David: With that as a background, I am proposing a solution
… (rolls over words that show a more detailed set of representations of sounds, such as different colors and heights of letters)
… most students can use this set of symbols
… the demo also gives more traditional things, like definitions
… there is a verbal sounding out each word
… add it to today's newspaper and the Things Entertainment Web site
… It is a Chrome extension and can be used even to run over a very long text
Kris Anne: Does it work in e-readers?
David: Yes, we have some examples
AJ: Any plans for OCR?
David: It's more of a behind the scenes production approach right now
David: This is free and non-profit, we partner with some other organizations to recover server costs, etc
David: I think the future of words is to use the interest to change orthography
… because the code is legacy tech that can't be touched, many people don't benefit from reading as they could/should
Allison: I understand this was researched at the word level, but I'm wondering if there is any research listening comprehension vs reading comprehension
David: One way to look at it is that reading comprehension is really just an avenue to listening comprehension
… we have to get around the notion that the orthography is an immutable fixture
Allison: can you post links in the chat?
https://
reading deep dive: https://
Maud: Do you know of anyone working on this in other languages in other countries?
David: While some in other countries are using this, I don't know anyone else working in the space
… however other languages have much less need to develop complex internal interpretative skills
Maud: There is someone in France working on this, perhaps... I could look into this
David: This can be a difficult sell
Maud: I like this idea. It does fit well with the work we do in accessibility
TPAC
Suzanne: Should we present?
AJ: can we review in advance
Allison: some concrete examples would be helpful
… such as CC
Silver Friday Call
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Zkim, take up item 5
Continue Discussion of Working Definition of Disability / Accessibility
Maud: Learning Disabilities are defined differently country to country
… requirements for accommodations differ
… In other cases, schools might not have advances in psychology to apply
… In some cases, anything that can't be "fixed" is a disabilitiy
Maud: -continues through slides-
David: To what extent will we stay with this
Maud: That's too be discussed
David: Yes, this is great a summary of where we are now
Maud: The idea is also to have the same understanding of the current framework in order to see how we can position ourselves relative to it
Allison: I get that we probably need to stay with the definition appropriate to adults, but there is also an issue with how to define this on, say, a fourth grade level
… this way the language is appropriate to be used in a child-facing way
--David and Maud both agree that is a good idea--
Maud: There are also gender-based differences in terms of patterns, and so support has to be different based on gender
… this might not be part of the definition, but can we be sure we address this where needed
… for example girls tend to under-diagnosed with some challenges
Allison: Can we also brought to other intersectionality (gender, race, etc)
AJ: are the slides/studies adult-based?
Maud: No, all of this is about children, and the research was about children
… I did include a definition of "accessibility" in the slides, but this highlights how the definition seems to not address children