Math Accessibility Online

Abstract

An open discussion aboutmathematics, including algebra and calculus, on Web 2.0 andsocial networking sites.Note: This document is now out of date, and has been replaced by a wiki,

OnlineMathematics Access

at:http://onlinemathematicsaccess.wikispaces.com/. Please modify thewiki rather than this document.

Author List

Please add your name here if you have made any changes or additions to this wiki. Anyoneinterested in mathematics may be an author.23/7/2009, Colin McAllister, email: colin dot mcallister@ymail.com, Twitter: colinmca,cmcallister.vox.com23/7/2009, Maria Droujkova, Twitter: MariaDroujkova, Math, technology and communityconsultant,naturalmath.com25/7/2009, Bob Mathews, email: bobm @ dessci.com, Twitter: MathType,dessci.com

This document "Math Accessibility Online"is licensed under aCreative CommonsAttribution-Share Alike 2.5 Malaysia License. "Math Accessibility Online" is simply adescriptive name for this document, similarity with any other uses of the name or of similarnames is coincidental. Suggested reasons for which you might wish to modify this documentinclude: adding your own contribution, correcting errors, or translation to another languageor media format.

Disclaimer

This document or wiki is open to anyone interested in mathematics. Content should be of general interest to mathematics enthusiasts around the world. User created content islicensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike license. Opinions are those of their authors. Mathematics is traditionally an open and free academic discipline, andremains so on this document or wiki. Most of the sites mentioned are free, open andinternationally available. They are commercial too, and may offer some features forpayment. For many online services, most users find that the free features are adequate fortheir needs. Please obey laws and regulations that apply to your use of this document orwiki, e.g. copyright laws, or regulations at your place of work or study. Please appealagainst laws and regulations that restrict your right to freely access this document or wikiand other forms of personal or academic communication. Content on this document or wikiexpresses our personal interest in mathematics, and does not represent any business ororganisation. The content is presented soley for general information. I manage thisdocument or wiki as a personal hobby, using the free Basic Service Plan of Wikispaces.com,and make no service guarantees of any kind. Please keep a copy of any content that youcreate, in case this document or wiki becomes unavailable without notice. If you arepresenting a lot of information, or any information that is valuable or commercial in nature,then you should post it on your own wiki or website, and not here. All trademarks are theproperty of their respective owners. Any errors will be corrected on request.Colin McAllister, 29th July, 2009.1Maths Accessibility Online

Weekly Math Chatas announced at Mathfuture

The future of mathematics and education is discussed on a wiki athttp://mathfuture.wikispaces.com/and weekly discussions on Twitter under hashtag#mathchat, and using meeting softwareElluminate. In lieu of attending the meetings, Ihave prepared this document and opened it up for collaborative editing as a wiki athttp://onlinemathematicsaccess.wikispaces.com/.

New Wiki - Online Mathematics Access

The wikiOnline Mathematics Accessis an open discussion about the support formathematics on Web 2.0 and social networking sites. It contains background material for aJuly, 2009 online meetingorganised by Maria Droujkova. Some of Maria's questions are inthe Discussions section, and you are invited to add your opinions as comments.The page "Status of Online Support for Mathematics Discussions" is a draft summary of thesituation, and is open for collaborative editing.Open discussions on this wiki include:* How can we share math online?* What sites support math conversation?* Is it OK to use plain text math?* Considerations for impaired vision or hearing?The wiki is public. If you wish to modify it or add your opinion, justfollow the linkandrequest access. In case of access difficulty, send an email to colin dot mcallister atymail.com, or contact Support at Wikispaces.One of the varied topics is "Text vs Graphical Problem Solving" or

Solve the Same Problem in Different Environments

To compare a text only discussion forum (Orkut.com) with a graphical discussion forum(Ning.com), it is helpful to observe the same mathematics problem being attempted in eachenvironment.This wiki began as a document, available asMath Accessibility Online(PDF) orMath Accessibility Online(Microsoft Word) Document on Scribd.com. These are out of date, soplease refer directly to the Wiki.I wish to thank Maria Droujkova for organising the online meetings on this topic at theMathfuturewiki, and for asking the above questions.

Personal Introductions

Colin:Hello, I'm Colin, a Software Engineer lecturing in Computer Science in Malaysia. During thelast year I have checked many social networks, and found that they do not offer goodsupport for technical discussions. Nevertheless maths discussions thrive among students onthe Orkut.com and Friendster.com social networks, which only offer plain text dialog.Email: colin dot mcallister@ymail.com2Maths Accessibility Online

Some of the questions:

Asked by Maria Droujkova for the July 23rd, 2009 online discussion.

How can we share math online?

Colin: Many documents with math content are saved as Microsoft Word or OpenOfficedocuments, or asAdobe PDFfiles. We share them with our contacts via email, or uploadthem to shared disk drives, or to online ftp or file sharing sites. Mathematicians andscientists have, for decades, been usingLaTeX, PostScript and DVI files to prepare andpublish math documents.Donald Knuth, inventor of Tex is the pioneer of using computersto create typeset documents. More spontaneous dialogue, on bulletin boards and socialnetworks, is usually text based, and that limitation makes complex equations tedious toread.

What social networks and virtual worlds are more supportive of mathconversation?

Colin: Blackboard and Moodle for course management, and Zoho Writer for online wordprocessing all provide an equation editing tool.The Wordpress and Movable Type blogging platforms support equation rendering, by theinstallation of extensions on the host blog.Mathematics CyberBoardhttp://www.sosmath.com/CBB/include equations that are enteredasLaTeXand embedded as images within the text.The Thesaurus of mathematical termshttp://thesaurus.maths.org/uses Java for graphics.Browsing the site with Firefox, it usesMathMLfor equations. Browsing with InternetExplorer, it requires the free MathPlayer plugin; as described on the theHelp Page. SocialNetworks on Ning.com support one or multiple images embedded in discussion text. Withthe assistance of online equation editors, that is good support for discussing mathematics.

afwings re: What sites support math conversation?

There are many many others -- too many to list here -- but here are some:* Wikipedia* PlanetMath* Physics/Math Help Forum* Blogger blogsThere's an add-in by Peter Jipsen (ASCIIMathML.js) that will allow you to use ASCII markupor LaTeX on your own website, and many blogs, wikis, etc. If you have access to and canedit the <head> of the page, you can add it. It converts the markup into MathML fordisplay.http://www1.chapman.edu/~jipsen/mathml/asciimath.html

Is it OK to use plain text math e.g. sqrt(5^3)?

Colin: That's common practice in the most active forums, e.g. on the Orkut.comcommunities. I believe that the practice became common due to programming languageslike Fortran and Algol in the 1970's and earlier. The caret "^" and slash "/" are two of theASCII characters that are useful in representing algebra in plain text documents. Most websites support Unicode characters, but the habit of using only the ASCII subset is still strong.The "Less Than" symbol "<" may pose a problem, for example in discussions on theHi5.com social network, where it is interpreted as HTML markup. It can be encoded as<. (If you are going to explain that to someone on a web page, you need to encode theampersand too, which is & in HTML markup.)3Maths Accessibility Online