[nabs-l] Disability Services and Math

Thu Feb 7 03:55:52 UTC 2013

Hi,,

Stats is actually required because both for my major and for my psych
minor I will need to be able to read and interpret research data.
It's listed on some things as strongly encouraged but on our most
recent course outline it has either this class or another psych
oriented math class which is stats with slightly different content as
the recommended math electives.  Either way I need one like it to
graduate with the major and minor I want.

Arielle: I haven't really had to get much brailled in hard copy.  All
my professors have been pretty great about just sending me word files
or emails with the information since they write everything up on the
computer anyway.  My math professor is actually really good about
making most things accessible on his own too, and goes above and
beyond because he really could just say that accessibility is the ds
office's issue.  For class he prints out guided note sheets for
everyone and gives me mine on flashdrives.  These are word files
complete with tables and graph descriptions where needed.  He also
allows me to submit my homework on these flashdrives in word and excel
formats and that has worked out pretty well.  He and I both seem to
like how the electronic process has worked out and I think he's doing
all he can to make the class work for me.  As far as graphs are
concerned though making tactile diagrams is understandably beyond his
expertees and he doesn't have the equipment to do it on his own.  I
really do feel like he's been accomodating and understanding though,
it's just the diagrams which get a little funky but those are out of
his control.

Last semester I barely had to set foot in the ds office once I picked
up my textbooks and now I'm down there several times a week.
I know it's not an IT specialist's job to proofread, but if we're
repeatedly having the same problems I don't see why proofreading
wouldn't come up as a easy fix as it would only take a few minutes
right after the embosser is done working.  I was going to say
something about it on Tuesday, but by the time I got down there and
people were free for me to talk to I had an hour till I actually had
to be in stats and I had to quite literally run across to campus to
not be late.  I'm planning on going down there tomorrow morning to
pick up the homework that was assigned Tuesday and the re-brailled
files for last Thursday's assignment.  They already know that Tuesday
and Thursday mornings and Friday afternoons are the only times I can
get there with my schedule, so I'm going to see if they can work to
improve the timing or check the work before giving it to me so I don't
have to run back and forth and they don't have to waste embosser
paper.  It's also not right that I had to ask a professor for an
extention because I really couldn't do the work.  Again, he was
understanding enough to push back my due date the same number of days
that I didn't have my braille, but I feel like asking him for
extentions is really not right, especially if it could be helped by a
few minutes of proofreading.

On 2/6/13, Arielle Silverman <arielle71 at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi Kaiti,
> Does your DS office give you Braille for other classes? Is the quality
> better for those classes? If so, who's doing the Brailling?
> I totally agree that you should not have to proofread your homework,
> and you should definitely complain to someone higher up in DS about
> this. If the situation isn't resolved, you could also explore the
> option of doing the homework electronically and asking your prof to
> send you descriptions of graphs. Email me off-list if you want more
> advice about how to do stats electronically as I have done it several
> times.
> Oh, and if you're a psych major stats is required.
> Arielle
>
> On 2/6/13, Nimer M. Jaber, IC³ <nimerjaber1 at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Kaiti,
>>
>> first, I don't think that stats is required for your major. Second, if
>> it is, then the university needs to accommodate you much better than
>> they are, and they need to terminate the position of the idiot they
>> hired and hire another. I know the person or rather of the person that
>> you're talking about because I was supposed to come and train her if
>> Clovernook would've done their job. Unfortunately she wasn't prepared
>> for the position that she got, and even if she was it's not the IT
>> specialist's job to proofread math, so it seems like the University
>> either needs to get their act together and hire someone that knows how
>> to do it, or they need to have it professionally done. Either way, the
>> statusquo is not acceptable.
>>
>> Please let me know what happens, as I am very interested to see how
>> they and you choose to handle this. And if you need/want help from a
>> tech specialist, please don't hesitate to call me and I will do what I
>> can to help you. Just respond to my email if you want contact info.
>>
>> Thanks.
>>
>> On 2/6/13, Kaiti Shelton <crazy4clarinet104 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> Hi all,
>>>
>>> This semester I am enrolled in a 200 level stats course necessary for
>>> my major.  Recently I've been having problems with my disability
>>> services and the braille material they have been producing for my math
>>> homework.  The course only meets on Tuesdays and Thursdays so the
>>> professor has to move pretty fast through the material.  To try and
>>> help me stay on top of the work as far as getting me the braille to do
>>> it goes the office has a woman who they've hired as the assistive
>>> technology specialist brailling all my math materials with the Tiger
>>> and my professor has given her access to our Sakai sight so she can
>>> just go get the material and not have to wait for me to find what it
>>> is, email it to her, and then have her check her email on a break.
>>> The ideas are great, but the quality of the braille just isn't there.
>>> Sometimes graphs will be missing from questions, the embosser will
>>> mess up several lines of braille and make the question unreadable, or
>>> other times entire questions will be missing from my braille packets.
>>> Contributing to the issue is that with my schedule I'm physically not
>>> able to get to the learning center two days a week due to my classes.
>>> This often means on the days I have stats and the entire morning free
>>> beforehand I often have to go to the ds office only several hours to
>>> pick up materials if they weren't readable the first time and then
>>> hurry to fix my old answers or do them in the first place before the
>>> start of the class.
>>>
>>> I feel really frustrated that I have to proofread like this.  Of
>>> course I don't expect everything to be perfect, but at the same time I
>>> don't think I should have to go down to the ds office to tell the
>>> braillist she missed a problem or that I can't read the graph because
>>> she printed it so small that the lines are too close together to read
>>> several times a week.  She is blind herself and a braille reader, so I
>>> wonder why there is no proofreading involved in the process.  And
>>> although I realize that she has other responsibilities, I know I'm the
>>> only student who receives braille material so I don't see how
>>> proofreading a few pages of braille would take much time.  I don't
>>> feel like with all my classes I'm doing that I should also have to
>>> worry if I can even do my homework for them.
>>>
>>> If anyone has any suggestions on how to handle this I would appreciate
>>> hearing them.
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> Kaiti
>>>
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>>
>>
>> --
>> Cordially,
>>
>> Nimer Jaber
>>
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-- 
Kaiti