[BlindMath] Typing Math and Science Quickly and Understandably

Wed May 2 23:11:10 UTC 2018

Hi Sean,

Thanks for sharing this. I will speak about this to the individuals
who typically coordinate Math & Science Access research at this
rehabilitation centre and those that organize conversion of my
textbooks into accessible electronic formats about this prospect. I
will certainly reach out offlist if there is any possibility of
getting access to 3D printing here.

Thanks.

On 5/2/18, Sean Tikkun via BlindMath <blindmath at nfbnet.org> wrote:
> Bhavya Shah,
>
>    I am assembling a team to generate 3D models to assist in learning. The
> team leaders are a former math teacher fluent in Braille (me) and a
> Fabrication lab director that teaches Biological and Chemical Sciences at
> the University level. If you have access to 3D printing I would love to know
> what you may need. Files are easy to send. If not, perhaps there is a
> fabrication lab at a university in Mumbai that would be interested in some
> collaboration?
>    Feel free to reach out. stikkun at nccu.edu.
>
>
> Sean Tikkun
> Apple Distinguished Educator
> class of 2007
>
> On May 01, 2018, at 08:51 PM, Sabra Ewing via BlindMath
> <blindmath at nfbnet.org> wrote:
>
> I typed most of my math using the first method. You might be able to type
> more quickly if you had a braille keyboard. Also note that you can use
> parentheses and brackets. The Pearce in equation editor can produce math in
> a visual format. It is free. The braille note touch can do this as well
> although it is very expensive. I would definitely say to use a keyboard. Do
> not type on your phone as I am doing now because it is much slower. Another
> thing you can do is use copy and paste. You do not have to type everything
> from scratch. You can copy previous steps to your clipboard, paste them, and
> then modify them to create your future steps. Like for example, you might
> write a chemical equation that is not balanced. Paste this equation
> underneath it so you have two copies of the same equation. Then, take the
> first step toward balancing that equation and make those changes to your
> second copy. Now you have your equation and underneath it, you have the
> modified version with step one completed, so copied the version with step
> one completed to your clipboard and paste it underneath. Now you have the
> original equation, and you have two copies of step one. Modified the second
> copy of step one based on what you plan to do in step two. Continue this
> method until you have finished the problem. With a braille keyboard, you
> should be able to type as fast as someone can speak and even faster. If you
> cannot or a braille keyboard is not an option, you can record what is being
> said with a phone or other recording device and you can then go back over
> it. Another thing you can do is request things in electronic format. Mini
> American professors do not know how to create accessible math when it is
> really very easy as you described. You do not have to know any markup
> languages. You can create accessible math just by using your computer
> keyboard, and in many cases, if you are a computer science student, your
> math is in the perfect format to just paste right over into your ide. Maybe
> Indian professors would be better at creating accessible. If not, you might
> be able to find someone who can do it. This will be especially easy if you
> can find some funding. I was not lucky in this regard because other than
> professors, I never found a dedicated person who knew how to produce
> accessible math. I finally got to a position where I could no longer receive
> accessible math because I moved on to a four-year university where the
> professors did not know how to produce it. It is very ironic that when I
> started out at a two year university, the professors did know how to produce
> it. I approach programmers, professors, deans, and department head. No one
> actually knew how including the programmers who produce accessible math
> every day. I finally had to end up listening to my math on recordings and
> writing everything down. It was very difficult. If you want to get math in
> braille, there is software that can do it called Duxberry. Ironically, my
> university actually had this software, but no one knew how to use it
> including the people who worked at disability services. Getting it for
> yourself will not be helpful. If you get this software, you will need
> someone who can modify the equations for you. If your professor has files
> that were generated from a markup language, you could try asking for those
> source files. Even if you do not know the markup language, math is written
> very similarly when you are programming computers, so you could probably
> pick up how to read it. Unfortunately, my professors used PDFs that they got
> from other sources or pictures of hand written documents so I could not do
> this. People will try to tell you that Matt cannot be produced excessively
> on the computer. This simply is not true. Every mathematical formula,
> function, and number known to humankind can be programmed into a computer
> using a text based programming language. Also, many of these functions and
> formulas can be put into XL. If you can put these formulas into XL, then you
> can produce them accessibly in a word document. If someone is trying to tell
> you that they can't, then just tell them to put it in a spreadsheet, press
> F2 on the cells, and read the formulas that way. XL is very good because you
> can use it to organize data, you can use it as a calculator, and you can use
> it to create tables and graphs. You can put these documents in your dropbox
> and you can get the pictures of the graphs. You can then import these
> pictures into the voice app on your phone and you can listen to them. If you
> are going to listen to pie charts, to make it easier on yourself to read,
> use the 3-D exploding pie charts. This may sound counterintuitive, but when
> you listen to them, there is a bit more separation between each piece. I
> don't know how you would get training to listen to grass. I just
> automatically was born knowing how to do it. No one ever taught me. I could
> always listen to graphs very easily and I could never read tactile graphics.
> There is also a program called math tracks where you can create audio graphs
> by entering in equations.However, it is really best to have both the
> equation and the data because what if you created a graph using any
> equation, and you need to make some changes to the data? Well, you don't
> have the data, so what are you going to do? You could probably generate the
> data from the equation in some cases, but that will take forever. I like to
> listen to a graph and have the spreadsheet in front of me at the same time.
> There is also a blind chemist named Dr. sapalo. I'm not sure how to spell
> his name. I have his card somewhere but I just have to find it. I really
> wish people would start using those barcode Cards where I can scan the
> contact information into my phone, but I only know one person who uses
> those. Anyways, You may want to get in touch with him. He has all of these
> probes. They do all different things. They connect to a computer and they
> can measure chemical reactions and make graphs and do all this stuff
> depending on what probe you use. For example, you could use one probe to
> graph the color changes that occur during an experiment. You could use
> another probe to track temperature changes like ice melting. I don't really
> do chemistry, but if I did, I imagine I would want this thing, but I can't
> remember what it is called. But he is actually a chemistry professor at a
> university. He is totally blind and he teaches classes and runs labs and
> does all sorts of things. There are plenty of blind computer scientists, but
> he struck my interest in particular because I have not heard of mini blind
> chemists. He also had some good advice for 3-D printing that would work in
> the United States, but I am not sure if it would work in India. If possible
> though, you may want to get some 3-D models printed. Another thing is that
> you want to stay consistent. You want to make sure that you are doing things
> in the classroom the same way you will do them during testing. In my
> chemistry class, I did not have access to a lot of 3-D models, but for
> testing purposes, they made me a 3-D model. This really was not fair because
> it was made out of a lot of cups and straws. I did not know what it was, and
> it is not fair to use models for testing purposes that you did not use in
> the classroom or to use a different method for testing purposes that you did
> not use in the classroom because this will skew the results. If you use
> certain accommodations in the classroom, insist on the same accommodations
> for testing.
>
> Sabra Ewing
>
> On May 1, 2018, at 5:22 PM, Bhavya shah via BlindMath <blindmath at nfbnet.org>
> wrote:
>
> 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
> E-mail Address: bhavya.shah125 at gmail.com
> LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bhavyashah125/
> Twitter: @BhavyaShah125
> Skype: bhavya.09
>
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-- 
Best Regards
Bhavya Shah

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

Contacting Me
E-mail Address: bhavya.shah125 at gmail.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bhavyashah125/
Twitter: @BhavyaShah125
Skype: bhavya.09