[nobe-l] Accessibility questions for teaching math to the sighted

[Chase Crispin]

Hi David,
Orbit Research has adapted the TI-84 graphing calculator, which is the most
common graphing calculator used in high school and college classrooms.  It
is sold by the American Printing House for the blind as the Orion TI-84 Plus
Talking Graphing Calculator.  This calculator allows a blind student or
teacher to use all functions of the calculator with speech or by connecting
a braille display.  When you generate a graph, the graph is played with
tones.  The higher the pitch, the higher the coordinates on the graph.  You
can wear headphones to hear the audio move from left to right as it traces
the graph, which can allow you to visualize the shape of the graph.  The
unit vibrates when in the negative region, and the unit makes various beeps
to indicate maximums, minimums, intersections, etc.  Since this unit is the
standard calculator with a speech unit on top, it is operated the same way
sighted students would use the calculator, so you could tell them exactly
which buttons to press and let them look at the output on your screen.  You
could also print graphs from the calculator and display them on the
classroom wall or board.  If you want to learn more about the calculator,
search for it on:
http://shop.aph.org/

At the NABS meeting at Convention, someone demonstrated a math editor that
was fully accessible that would allow you to enter, manipulate, and display
math equations, but I do not have the name of that product written down.
Hopefully someone else here knows about this software and can provide you
with more detailed information.  I hope this helps.


Chase Crispin

-----Original Message-----
From: nobe-l [mailto:nobe-l-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of David Moore via
nobe-l
Sent: Tuesday, July 21, 2015 4:07 PM
To: nobe-l at nfbnet.org
Cc: David Moore
Subject: [nobe-l] Accessibility questions for teaching math to the sighted

Hi All.
My name is David Moore from Columbus, Ohio.  I received my masters degree at
Ohio State in mathematics education  I also received a BS in mathematics.
Now, I do some tutoring.  I tutor sighted college students one on one in
Calculus and other higher concepts.  With one on one tutoring, I have the
student read the problem to me and I tell him or her exactly what to right
down as I do the problem in my head.
I learned math by listening to tapes and by reading my texts with the
Optacon.  I know what all the symbols look like in print, because of the
Optacon.  This leads into the help I would grately appreciate from all of
you.
I want to teach a classroom full of sighted students at the small community
college level.  This has always been my dream.  First of all, How do I type
out my math lectures so the content will look to the students as though I
wrote it on a board?  I use JAWS and Openbook.  That technology, however,
can't help me write or read math texts.  Next, How do I get JAWS to read the
math content that I am typing into an editor so I can edit what I am typing
just like in a word document?  Next, How do I read math texts that the
college or high school would use so I can prepare my lessons from the texts?
I want to be able to read the math material, write out a lecture that I
would present to the students, and have a way to grade there work that they
input.  I really need help from an experienced blind mathematics teacher who
teaches the sighted.  I am a very slow Braille reader and know little Nemoth
code.  I do all computations in my head and picture all graphs in my head by
feeling with the optacon.  The problem is, I have no more optacon.  Rehab
took it back years ago, and I have never looked into getting another one in
years.  I have just done a little bit of this one on one tutoring where I
just tell the student what to right down.  I didn't know how this technique
would work in front of an entire class with nothing for the sighted students
to look at.  In an Interview, I don't know how it would go if I said that I
would just stand in front of the class and tell them what to write down with
no representation for them to look at.  Also, I heard that much math is done
on graphing calculators compared to when I was in school in the 1980s.  How
would I access graphing calculators that students would use to do their
homework on?  With my few one on one students, I just show them how the
graphs look with my finger while they play around with their calculators to
get something that looks like what I am drawing with my finger.  When I try
writing print on paper or board, it goes all over the place.  I can picture
the print in my head, but I have trouble writing it in any kind of straight
line.  I would so much appreciate any help or suggestions you have for me to
obtain that teaching job at a high school or small community college and how
I could do all that is needed with assistive technology.  Thank you so much
in advance.

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