[nfbcs] The Mixed Approach

[Peter Donahue]

Good morning everyone,

	As for us we use a combination of technology manuals along with audio and video tutorials when possible. This way if there's a procedure that's not explained well in the audio or video we can refer to the manual for detailed information. The same can work in the opposite direction; the audio or video can present details not well covered in the manual. We like to give ourselves the best of both Worlds when it comes to learning technical stuff or using house-hold appliances. Hope this helps.

Peter Donahue



-----Original Message-----
From: nfbcs [mailto:nfbcs-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Tracy Carcione via nfbcs
Sent: Monday, February 04, 2019 8:47 AM
To: NFB in Computer Science Mailing List
Cc: Tracy Carcione
Subject: Re: [nfbcs] Technical gaps that need to be filled for math classes.

All I can say is that, within the last 2 years,  I've taught myself to use
2 devices by reading the manual.  Maybe I got lucky, but I didn't find it
all that hard.  I am impatient with manuals, and they sometimes leave out
information, but mostly I've used them successfully, and gotten where I
want to be in a shorter time than I would have waiting for someone to
train me in person. I guess I'm even more impatient with waiting on
someone else than I am with reading.
Tracy

> Unfortunately there is a massive market in the book publishing, on-line
> training, and in-person training areas for this very reason.  The "manual"
> or "study guide" provided by the producer of the product is normally the
> least useful modality for the actual consumer of the device or product to
> use.  The problem that is being discussed is pervasive and most
> prevalently pertaining to complex electronic software or devices.  Most
> people are not capable of actually teaching themselves to use a device nor
> do they have the patience, which is why actual manuals rarely exist
> anymore.  When they are produced, they are rarely written by a qualified
> communicator of the information.  Actual Technical writing is a skillset
> that rarely encountered and even fewer of the technical writers have
> worked with a person that has a background in Educational Psychology or
> curriculum development.
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: nfbcs <nfbcs-bounces at nfbnet.org> On Behalf Of Tracy Carcione via
> nfbcs
> Sent: Sunday, February 3, 2019 10:10 AM
> To: 'NFB in Computer Science Mailing List' <nfbcs at nfbnet.org>
> Cc: Tracy Carcione <carcione at access.net>
> Subject: Re: [nfbcs] Technical gaps that need to be filled for math
> classes.
>
> I have found that often there is no substitute for reading the manual when
> trying to learn a new accessible device.  I know, we all want to take the
> thing out of the box, turn it on, and start working, but, in my
> experience, it usually doesn't work that way.  I too hate to RTFM, but, in
> the end, it saves a lot of time and aggravation.  It's nice to have
> someone else sit and explain things, but often there just isn't that
> helpful person around.
> I didn't grow up with Youtube and Google.  I find Google helpful, but
> Youtube not so much.  And neither is really a replacement for sitting down
> and reading the basics laid out in a manual or user's guide (except for
> using Google to find an online version of said manual.) It's a pain in the
> neck; it takes extra time; but it pays off in the long run.
> Doing stuff as a blind person often just takes longer than it does for a
> sighted person.  But, with some study and ingenuity, one can find little
> tricks that speed up the process a bit.  Still, I remember in college
> feeling like I had to work much longer hours than my sighted peers.
> Annoying, stressful, but that's what it took to reach my goal.
> And, annoying as it is, it is good to learn in school how to find the
> resources you need, because you won't get anywhere near so much help out
> in the work world.
> Sorry if this sounds harsh, but there it is.
> Tracy
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: nfbcs [mailto:nfbcs-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Kendra Schaber
> via nfbcs
> Sent: Wednesday, January 30, 2019 8:11 PM
> To: NFB in Computer Science Mailing List
> Cc: Kendra Schaber
> Subject: [nfbcs] Technical gaps that need to be filled for math classes.
>
> Technical gaps that need to be filled for math classes.
> Hi all!
> I’m taking college algebra which has an awesome teacher and awesome
> support from my school’s Disability Services. Dispite this awesome
> support, the longer I’m in this class, the farther south I seem to be
> treading. No, it’s not entirely because I can’t solve a quadradic
> equation to save my life. It’s because I keep running into some major
> ethical and technical gaps that really need to be filled. I have an Orien
> TI84 graphic calculator, a Polaris Braille Sense with the Polaris Math
> app, a Dell laptop computer with both JAWS and NVDA installed on it, an
> iPhone SE with Voice Over and of course, this math class requires braille
> textbooks.
> I’m not here to ask for spasific help in one area here. But I have
> quickly spotted some major gaps that I think all math students are facing
> that need to be dealt with asap.
> Technology:”
> Orien TI84 graphic calculator:
> This graphic calculator is an awesome tool when you have mastered it. The
> ethical problem here is for those of us who are in our 30s and who are
> also not computer programers and who are also not young enough to have a
> sixth sense on how to figure out how to work technology. I’m one of the
> amiture folks who knows how to work technology once I have learned how to
> use this technology. I have noticed that the calculator is not as simular
> to the normal vertions as everyone wants you to believe. Whenever I have
> gone and had a sited person, tutor or teacher show me how to work this
> calculator, we often run into technical hang ups with the accessibility.
> For example, just before this writing, I was sitting in my math classroom
> after class itself had ended with my math teacher. He was walking me
> through how to discover the minamun point on a coordinent plane. We have
> noticed how much I’m slowed down when reading the points to hunt for
> this minamum. My teacher and I couldn’t figure out how to get the
> calculator to quickly list off this information without spending five
> minutes, (not egzaderating) just to read through the points to find the
> minamum. We have noticed that if I were to get ten of this kind of problem
> in my homework, that if I were to try this kind of problem without a pair
> of sited eyeballs, it would take me literarly, all day just to get through
> just that set of ten math problems. This example is just one of a few that
> I could list off the top of my head that are of this nature. While I’m
> on the same thread, this ethical technical issue also connects up to a
> bigger picture. I have noticed that everyone wants to point people like me
> to the usual resources like the school’s tutoring center, etutoring and
> of course, Professor U Tube and Professor Google and the manuals that are
> better served in the recycling bin. Sure, everything but the mannuals do
> have their place. Don’t get me wrong! But for people like me who are not
> born with NASA technical brains, we actually need our own teacher who
> already knows this calculator and who can actually teach better than the
> tutors that come from most school’s tutoring centers. The ethical issue
> is just as much a technical issue. These experts don’t igzist in most
> places where accessible tech is taught. I had to put out a call for help
> on the math list. Luckily, I managed to get a blind calculus student in
> college who knows this calculator. But I could just as easily have not
> found any one at all who could help me out. I also got more of the
> expected feedback in which I was told to go to the usual resources. But
> what people don’t truely don’t understand is that those resources
> leave just as many gaps as they fill whenever they do help out. Also, the
> U Tube vidios have so much visual information that they leave more gaps
> for a blind audience than they actually give to that same audience. Also,
> when you do run into something that is remotely useful, it costs an arm
> and a leg for those of us on SSI. So, either way, we are doomed for
> aquiring the right resources that are actually going to assist us normal
> non NASA brained folks.
> The Polaris Braille Sense:
> The Polaris Braille Sense is even more of a specialty piece of technology
> than the calculator. This awesome braille note taker is so new that there
> is not enough useful information that is presented in such a way that a
> blind person would benefit from when trying to learn how to use this note
> taker by using U Tube vidios. Just like the calculator, there are not
> enough specialty tech teachers who knows how to work this device. As the
> result, it can and does take months just to learn how to use the Polaris
> Braille Sense. There is a deeper layer with this device that I believe it
> leaves even more gaps than it actually fills. This gap is the Polaris Math
> app. True, this app is useful when you know how to use it, particularly
> when you need to send your teacher several coordinent plain graphs as
> homework or in a test. The problem is that there isn’t enough
> information that’s out there that a blind person would benefit from.
> Today, I watched a vidio which left out a few very small but critical gaps
> such as where the graph button is for example. Vidios like this often
> helps the sited person more than the blind person who is required to use
> this app every time they go to turn a graph into their math professor.
> Again, there are too many people who promptly point out the usual
> resources which do have their place but they also don’t understand that
> such resources leave more gaps than they fill. We simply need more blind
> tech specialists to teach the non NASA brained college student. Even my
> own tech teacher is a non NASA brained blind tech teacher. Because of
> this, her skills are limited even though she specializes in teaching
> access technology. But she even needs such experts to farther expand her
> education.
> Braille books:
> I love braille dearly!!! However, I can’t stand the way textbook
> producers drag their feet with making braille textbooks when the schools
> who use them pay thousands of dollars just to make them. First of all, way
> too many hard copy braille textbooks are slower than the class that they
> are suposed to work in. My math class requires a textbook that my math
> teacher spasifically picked out for me to use in his class. I got the
> first part just fine and like normal. But from last week on, they got
> delayed. I waited a few days just in case the snail mail was delayed only
> to discover apon farther digging that they got delayed by at least 2
> weeks. Even without any other technical problem, this issue alone renders
> a blind person unable to do their homework independently. I now have to
> have a reader to cover this gap. I have also noticed some errors in the
> braille translation itself. Mind you, that’s not including the
> unrealistic expectation for a math student of any form to read 14 vollums
> of an encyclopitia styled textbook in 2 weeks. I scated around that by
> jumping dirrectly to the homework and studdying the rest as needed. In any
> case, those pesky hard copy braille books also address some bigger ethical
> issues that are gaps for decades.
> Braille graphics:
> Braille graphics are crazy and hard to produce. However, they are highly
> needed in the math and science fields. Because of this, graphs has to come
> up here. There has been talk of a piece of technology that’s suposed to
> make 2 demintional graphs. But where is it? Why hasn’t it ever made it
> on to the markets? This needs to be addressed now!!! For people like me, I
> can’t read a braille math book on my braille display and get the
> information that’s needed when it’s presented in the graphs that I
> would get in a hard copy braille text book. A 3D printer can’t address
> them because the graphs are 2 dementional, not 3 dementional. I have had a
> picture in my mind of a whole page that’s full of nothing but braille
> pixles that can pop up anywhere on the page to. Either write in regular
> braille text form, Nemeth Code, UEB code or graphs or the combination.
> This kind of technology does not igzist. This kind of technology hasn’t
> even been invented yet. It’s 2019, not 1999 and I still have not seen
> such technology. I thought it would be out by now, particularly because of
> how fast most technology moves. Also, I would want this braille page of
> braille pixles to connect up to a braille note taker as needed. I would
> want to read my homework with this screen but with the note taker, I would
> also want to do my homework because a blind student couldn’t read their
> homework and write it at the same time which is what is needed by the
> student. Because of this, a blind person can’t work their math textbooks
> nor read graphs in less they are done in hard copy form. Hard copy takes
> up way too much space, is too comberson to be realistic and is also not
> always consistantly ethical because it’s not always on the same time,
> same place, same date and same leval playing field.
> With all that on the table, here is what this does to a blind person based
> on my own experiences. This slows the blind student way down, so much so,
> that the student in question can’t keep up with the class at all. They
> can’t independently do their homework without help and regarding the
> technology, without the correct knowledge, the tech is rendered totally
> useless. There are far better ways to improve accessability. Why aren’t
> these issues even talked about, brought up nor even passed around in
> normal conversation? I don’t even know the answer. But I know that there
> are still way too many dangerous gaps that need to be filled in order to
> get more blind students into the STEM fields. What do you all think of the
> ethics of these gaps?
>
>
> Thank you for taking the time to read this E Mail!
> Blessed be!!!
> Kendra Schaber,
>  Chemeketa Community College,
>  350 Org,
> Citizen’s Climate Lobby,
> National Federation of the Blind of Oregon, Capitol Chapter, Salem,
> Oregon.
>  Home email:
> Redwing731 at gmail.com
>  Chemeketa Community College Email:
>  Kschaber at my.Chemeketa.edu
> Phone:
> 971-599-9991
> "When the student is ready, the teacher will appear" Author Unknown.
>  Sent From My iPhone SE.
>  Sent from My Gmail Email.
>  Get Outlook Express for IOS.
>
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