[Blindmath] college math

Fri Jan 29 17:09:20 UTC 2016

Please see in line replies. This is a lot of info. Please don't get 
overwhelmed.
<snip>
> I am currently using a big nemeth text book, called “Learning the
> Nemeth Braille code for teachers and students” by Ruth Creg,
> transcribed in 1991, adopted
> by Bana in 1987. Are there more condensed materials or better tools
> for learning nemeth?
For a quick reference to certain things, see this link. I am not sure of 
any good nemeth resources, your guess is as good as mine.
http://www.gh-mathspeak.com/examples/NemethBook/
Also look for this pdf.
Nemeth Code Made Easy
Christopher Weaver
I can't seem to figure out where I located this originally, and don't 
know who retains the copyright.
Here is a resource from the Texas School for the Blind and Visually 
Impaired that I just found. I haven't fact checked the site very well, 
but I have seen other articles from them before and they are reputable.
http://www.tsbvi.edu/nemeth-code
> What strategies would you recommend to a new nemeth reader for reading math?
>
> I used to look at math visually. I am here for training now at LCB. I
> am learning nonvisual techniques and I am reading braille with an
> electronic display.
This is how I do this. If you are doing *any* work with matrices or 
linear algebra, or even Differential Equations, you need to revert to 
paper with a perkins braille writer. It is in my experience, just way to 
hard to do any matrices work with a one dimensional display. Does your 
school have a braille embosser? If so, you might have them braille 
homework in hard copy. Other wise, I don't know a good way for them to 
send you electronic braille, because I don't know how you can digitally 
read BRF files other than opening them in notepad (not the best option). 
I use my braille display hooked up with NVDA. For receiving materials I 
have the disability services office convert the materials to mathtype. 
Design science creates this product. 
http://www.dessci.com/en/products/mathtype/ I also often have them 
generate the materials with mathml. (I technically have them generate it 
to the mathjax output, and then I use the mathjax menu to get mathml. 
It's under something like math renderer > mathml). I use mozilla firefox 
for this because it by far will render mathml the best. You have to 
right click an individual equation once when you first open the page to 
enable this for all equations. Recent versions of mathjax should have an 
accessible menu. Use NVDA for this. Install Mathplayer (the beta). See 
the NVDA users guide section on mathematics. Of all the tools for 
reading math, NVDA by far does the best job as of now. You might also 
look at using IOS to read the mathml if you can, because the Math 
support on IOS is pretty good. If you or a state rehab agency buy 
Mathtype, you can read math that was written in word. Note that they 
currently have a nasty bug that prevents you from activating mathtype. 
(you have to do this each time you open mathtype). I don't know if it 
effects every user or not, but they have known about it for a month or 
more now and haven't fixed it which is really annoying. Anyhow, you can 
read math text books distributed to you by your disability services 
office if they convert them with mathtype. They could alternatively 
export the material to mathJax or mathml from the publish part of the 
mathtype addon for word. You won't be able to make annotations in the 
book if they do this, unless yo you edit the mathml, which is why 
mathtype integration with NVDA is nice, because you can edit the 
document in word to ad your own notes or annotations to the texxt.
For editing, I do this. I use nemetex (www.accessisoft.com/nemetex.htm) 
for converting braille nemeth code to la tex). I then use pdflatex from 
the command line to generate pdfs. It's disgustingly hard if you're not 
a computer scientist, because it can give cryptic errors sometimes. (I 
had an error this year at one point in stats that simply said (4) with 
no farther explanation). If I hadn't had any experience with debugging 
code, it would have been the end there. It may be easier to have the 
disability services office issue an accommodation for a transcriber to 
verbally transcribe math to print. You basically read the math to the 
transcriber and they write it in print to paper. If you are doing 
anything calc or above, do this because nemetex isn't designed for much 
more than calc 1. Even in stats getting back translation to work was a 
trick because there are so many odd symbols like \beta and each of them 
can have capital letters or hats and other things to deal with.  In my 
upper division classes, I use la tex to write most assignments that are 
science or math. I sometimes just write the math in la tex to begin with 
if it isn't overly hard.
You will need good communication with your professor. They will be a lot 
of help, especially if they know la tex. I often requested a sheet of 
the equations (especially for stats). see what I am giving you for 
recommendations for notes and notetakers below. Also, having a reader on 
tests is really nice, because sometimes the technology just flat out 
doesn't read the math the way you want, and when you are under a time 
crunch on a test reverting to a human is really nice. I use a scribe to 
write my math on tests (usually). It can be tricky after the test to 
deal with compiling la tex. You can try it, but u should request time to 
compile the la tex to pdf after the test. This pretty much means that 
you will have to ensure people trust you to not edit the test 
afterwords, and it may be a long shot to get this accommodation because 
it is basically saying give me infinite time to convert the braille to 
pdf. That is why I have gone with a scribe now. It is easier to do this 
because I don't have to worry about whether the pdf is visually 
formatted correctly.
> Since I used to look at an entire problem all at once, now how can I
> look at a problem in its entirety using nonvisual techniques?
You can request homework either in la tex, or braille. If you get hard 
copy braille, you have a physical two dimensional paper with the 
problem. It is nice because the visual layout of the problem is 
retained. Braille is your friend for understanding the problem. You can 
try mathtype as well, or use mathml like I mentioned above. It just 
depends on the situation.
>
> In regards to math text books, I can read text better using audio but
> then equations are thrown in with the text. What is the best way to
> handle a math
> text book? I have had a book with the theory all in one file and then
> links to separate files with the equations. Is this the best way or
> are there better
> techniques?
Now that NVDA supports mathml with the mathplayer software, this works 
best because you get both audio and braille. I use mathtype for most 
books so I can annotate things.
>
> how might latex and math ML be used in reading math?
See above for mathml. La tex is basically just learning to read it. It 
can be ugly. I usually do a replace on the document to remove \left and 
\right. Other than that it is just a matter of learning la tex. It is 
really nice to resolve ambiguities, but braille is easier to read 
(assuming you are farely good at braille). If you have the guts to delve 
into it, there is a tool called latex-access. It is open source. It is 
kind of hard to setup. It has NVDA plugins. If you need the matrix 
browser, I have a modified plugin I wrote that augments the matrix 
browser to support multiple matrices. I can share it publicly if you 
like. I requested it get put into latex-access, but that never happened 
as far as I know. Since it's open source, I guess I could fork it and 
publish the updated version.
>
> what programs should I use and with which screen readers? I have JAWS,
> NVDA, iOS, a focus forty braille display, are there better tools?
I am glad you have a 40 cell display. This will help. For reading, see 
above. For writing, use your braille display to write the math. I use 
NVDA. I write the math in a text editor. Notepad++ works awesome for 
this. I use ctrl+d to duplicate the current line. I then go down a line 
and work from the coppied version. I can elaberate more if you wish on 
this. The braille you type will appear fine on your braille display, but 
it will basically be gibberish to a sighted person. I wrote a bunch of 
speech dictionary entries for NVDA in math, I could share with the 
community. They aren't perfect and occasionally report non-math as math 
though.
You can also (and should also) use your braille display to edit la tex. 
Use computer braille when doing all of this. You won't get contractions, 
but at least it won't abbreviate things that are symbols.
>
> When math problems are read during lectures, what accommodations do I
> need to request? How do I access handwritten notes from the TA or note
> taker?
You can have a notetaker that the disability services office trains to 
use mathtype. They usually either sit with you in class, or are just 
another student, depending on what you think you need. Don't be afraid 
to experiment. It may work for you to have a student take notes, it may 
work better for the ds office to hire someone to take notes as well. It 
depends on you and if you feel you are getting enough support. If you 
need someone dedicated to notes and other alt-format, feel free to ask. 
math is extremely visual and many people don't say it correctly. I can't 
tel you how many times I have heard someone say things like x minus two 
squared when they mean left paren x minus two right paren squared. This 
is why I use a notetaker. It is easier for them to write down what they 
see than for me to expect someone to read all math (especially anything 
upper division) with no ambiguity. Also, in stats, the distinction 
between Capital x (X) and lower case x (x) is extremely important. It is 
hard even for sighted people to know what the professor means, and it is 
really hard as a professor to always remember to distinguish between the 
two. I usually make sure the professor understands why I am asking them 
to try and read things as best as possible, but I don't get uptight if 
they read it wrong. It is really hard to read math while trying to teach 
it, especially if the professor isn't naturally used to doing this.
>
> Again, thank you so much for your help.
Yep. Would you mind if I use some of your questions to create a math 
accessibility FAQ on my website? It might be a good resource to have.
>
> Syed
>
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