[Blindmath] Performing calculations as a blind students, tips, tricks and advice for the NFB Youth Slam

[James McCarthy]

Susan,
Let me preface this by saying I am one of those who took only as much math
as I was required to... "math for historians." Also, many teachers of the
blind discouraged use of a slate and stylus for math equations. One way a
slate and stylus is not like pencil and paper is that the writing is not
easily visible. To read what has been written, one must turn over the paper,
which would lead one in many cases to keep the material in the head or prove
something of a distraction. I am not aware of blind people who used a slate
and stylus for math, though perhaps there are some. A Braille Writer gives
the most direct view of what has been written and I think use of an abacus
probably is also a really good way for blind people to learn. I had minimal
instruction using one, though if I were working with a blind elementary
school student, I would introduce it early in the process.
Jim McCarthy
-----Original Message-----
From: blindmath-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:blindmath-bounces at nfbnet.org] On
Behalf Of Susan Jolly
Sent: Wednesday, July 13, 2011 2:42 PM
To: blindmath at nfbnet.org
Subject: Re: [Blindmath] Performing calculations as a blind students, tips,
tricks and advice for the NFB Youth Slam

I noticed that no one mentioned using a slate and stylus.  Wouldn't that be
most like using pencil and paper? I'm far from being a high school student
but, like the students Steve mentioned, I still find that sketching out a
rough solution on pencil and paper is often the best way for me to start
making progress on solving a problem.

I'm also a big fan of working things out with Fortran pseudo-code or
something similar so I can use as many intermediate variables as desired in
order to not have to rewrite complex expressions.  This strategy also makes
it possible to minimize the amount of change going from one step to the next
which has the advantage of reducing the amount of information I have to keep
track of mentally.

Susan


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