[nfbcs] Technical gaps that need to be filled for math classes.

Thu Jan 31 16:02:50 UTC 2019

That seems a bit negative to me.  Change happens often in ways we don't 
see.  We can also be a part of that change.

On 1/30/2019 8:40 PM, Amanda Lacy via nfbcs wrote:
> Hi Kendra,
>
> I was on the Blind Math list for at least 10 years and almost nothing
> has changed in that time.
> Nothing's gonna change either, not unless those "NASA-brain people"
> completely rethink the way blind people read, write and learn math.
> Even if that happens, don't expect the disabled office staff at any
> college to understand anything about blind people and math.
>
> A full-page Braille display that can do graphics, etc. doesn't exist
> because the cost to produce it is enormous. You'd have a zillion tiny
> moveable breakable parts, produced for a tiny minority of Braille
> readers within the small minority of blind people. The market is tiny
> and the parts aren't cheap. I touched a graphics display at CSUN so
> progress is happening sloooooowly.
> But I won't get excited until standard tablets for sighted people have
> tactile screens. Then the price goes down for everyone.
>
> Life is hard.
>
> On 1/30/19, Kendra Schaber via nfbcs <nfbcs at nfbnet.org> wrote:
>> 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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