[BlindMath] Typing Math and Science Quickly and Understandably

[Bhavya shah]

Dear all,

I am Bhavya Shah, a totally blind 16-year-old student from Mumbai,
India. Having just completed my tenth grade with the same Mathematics
and Science syllabus as my sighted peers in a mainstream school, I
intend to take up the Science stream according to the Indian education
system for Classes 11 and 12 with the subject combination of
Physics+Chemistry+Mathematics, and probably take up something along
the lines of Computer Science for my undergraduate studies after that
(although I shouldn’t overly worry about about finalizing that for
now, I suppose). Additionally, I shall be enrolling into coaching for
a very competitive pan-India engineering entrance examination over the
next two years where I will be delving into particularly advanced
topics in to the three afore-mentioned subjects.

Till Class 10, I managed an overwhelming chunk of Math either orally
or mentally, and from what I have been informed, have dealt with
relatively very simple organic structures, general numericals and
chemical equations which I have been handling mostly via plain text.
It has become increasingly clear to me that this makeshift method will
be extremely inefficient and consequently infeasible for the kind of
syllabus I am transitioning to. Hence, I am looking for different
techniques, tools or methods of typing Math and Science that will
allow me to be as rapid a Math&Science typist as I am of the English
language (at its peak, my fingers have achieved about 100 WPM) so that
I can cope with the daily rigor this coaching demands. I need to be
able to type mathematical and scientific content accurately and
swiftly not necessarily such that it is visually readable by a sighted
professor but more so for my own reference, understanding and purposes
of review and revision.

So far, I am versed only with two options – ASCII Math, where I would
just type Math and Science using standard symbols present on any
keyboard such as /, *, ^ and so on to denote different things (perhaps
(x+2)/x-1)) in chiefly plain text, or type things in LaTeX using
MathType ($\frac{x+2}{x-1}$) and employ Math Player and NVDA to read
it. From my basic understanding of this and limited past experience
with each of these methods, the former sounds much faster and more
efficient to me, but I am open to evidence and experiences suggesting
otherwise. There are various other Math typing tools I have heard
about over the years such as Infty Reader and Lean Math, but have
never adequately researched them let alone used them to any extent.
Any information or instructional material on these and other potential
alternatives you would recommend would be of great help too.

I would truly appreciate any assistance on different strategies you
may have used to math your sighted counterparts’ speed in terms of
writing and solving mathematical and scientific material, questions
and problem sets.

Thanks.

-- 
Best Regards
Bhavya Shah

Blogger at Hiking Across Horizons: https://bhavyashah125.wordpress.com/

Contacting Me
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