[Blindmath] Help with Algebra 1 student requested

[David Tseng]

Writing free form math in a text editor had been how I initially
tackled algebra/trig/calculus in high school. I definitely identify
with the difficulty of what amounts to unchecked programming. It gets
quite tedious as you've noted.

However, I did find a few techniques to get into the flow of things
with this type of math composition.

First, to reduce the possibility of errors, I would copy exactly the
exercise onto a blank notepad document. Say, your example,
-3x + 2y = 12

Then, copy and paste the same line onto a subsequent line:

-3x + 2y = 12
-3x + 2y = 12

Then, perform whatever transformations to "advance" the problem:

-3x + 2y = 12
3x -3x + 2y = 12 + 3x

Copying the line again:

-3x + 2y = 12
3x -3x + 2y = 12 + 3x
3x -3x + 2y = 12 + 3x

This limits the focus of the problem to the previous line only and
prevents the dependencies of the current line increasing quadratically
as you move along down the problem.

Long term, this sets one up pretty well for composition in something
like LaTeX which fits well in a university setting. Since profs use
LaTeX to encode exams, and some publishers use tex to write their
books (i.e. Knuth, and various CS profs), it becomes a great end from
the stepping stone of textual ascii based math composition.

There are also good solutions for reading LaTeX such as Math Player
and a little less well known one "AsTeR" which is hard to set up but
has lots of nice "visualization"/spcial mapping/metric space based
features as it was written by a blind mathematician. Composition can
be done in a text editor, but there are also tools for such purposes
(auctex, design science products, etc.). The nice thing is that as a
standard, it has support from totally free and totally not free
software alike and was created relatively recently by a Stanford CS
prof.

- David

On 2/7/12, Julian, Kate <KJulian at bluevalleyk12.org> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I am supporting a student in Algebra 1. We are getting into more complicated
> equations and he is getting lost. He prefers to use his vision and the
> computer for math, we have tried using his BrailleNote and Nemeth code, but
> he prefers the computer.  The following is how he would complete setting an
> equation to y:
>
> -3x + 2y = 12
> -3x + 3x + 2y = 12 + 3x
>
> After this step, he gets mixed up and when assisted will write this:
>
> 2y = 12 + 3x
> 2y/2 = 12/2 + 3x/2
>
> Here he will often drop negatives and/or forget a term. For me, I too would
> get lost.
>
> Is there another way for him complete this work? He actually does the work
> in MathType and then pastes his work into a Word document. We have tried
> using Math Window, but that too is tedious and he may not take it home. He
> is unable to handwrite anything. We have tried having him use a screen
> reader, as he often relies on his memory and makes mistakes, but the screen
> reader does not work well with MathType.
>
> Help, we are about to go into solving equations with variables on both sides
> of the equal sign and systems.
>
> Thanks - Kate
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
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