[blindkid] Math technology

Bo Page bo.page at sbcglobal.net
Sun Apr 11 15:26:08 UTC 2010


The website is www.whatwork.ed.gov


--- On Sun, 4/11/10, Carol Castellano <blindchildren at verizon.net> wrote:


From: Carol Castellano <blindchildren at verizon.net>
Subject: Re: [blindkid] Math technology
To: "NFBnet Blind Kid Mailing List, (for parents of blind children)" <blindkid at nfbnet.org>
Date: Sunday, April 11, 2010, 10:52 AM


There is interesting research--yes, real 
research--on various teaching methods and materials on whatworks.gov.
Carol

At 04:48 AM 4/11/2010, you wrote:
>Hi Heather,
>As I said, the learning styles issue is a big one and people love to
>believe in it. However, there doesn't appear to be an aptitude
>treatment interaction. So, in real educational terms, learning styles
>is not a factor in educational outcomes. Read, write say is successful
>because it gives a student proper practise, decoding, encoding and
>speaking. This is about memory training, it isn't successful because
>it addresses different learning styles. I personally don't employ
>read, write and say when I teach children to read because most of my
>students are under five and don't have the motor control to write.
>But, I get them to find and arrange letters on a magnetic board as a
>separate activity. Reading is a complex set of tasks and I have found
>use of designed context presentation, and mneumonic pairing, along
>with early use of a controlled vocabulary and lots of actual reading,
>guarantees the most rapid acquisition of independent reading. I've
>been teaching long enough to see fads come and go, but as long as
>children have certain basic things in place, they learn to read on
>whatever method is used, in about the same amount of time. The reasons
>for the wide variation in public schools is the lack of some of the
>basic requirements for reading to be acquired, and is a symptom of the
>public school teaching situation.
>
>Emotional intelligences is different from learning styles and is more
>about one's overall life interaction and personal preferences and is
>most useful in assisting educators with managing student behaviour and
>student motivation.
>
>Regards,
>
>Heather Field
>
>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Heather" <craney07 at rochester.rr.com>
>To: "NFBnet Blind Kid Mailing List,(for parents of blind children)"
><blindkid at nfbnet.org>
>Sent: Saturday, April 10, 2010 8:44 PM
>Subject: Re: [blindkid] Math technology
>
>
>That is the most depressing thing that I have ever read.  Every time I
>see
>something like this I feel more and more compelled to become a TVI and
>not
>simply an early childhood or elementary teacher with special education
>cirtification.  I just can't fathem it.  I never had graphing
>software, but
>I never pushed for it, because I was more of a music, art, theatre,
>English
>and psychology minded student.  I had a scientific calculator, a lap
>top, a
>braille blazer embosser, a printer, JFW, Duxbery, a plethera of raised
>line
>graph paper, wicky sticks, cork board and tracing wheels, a cane and
>time
>each week in elementary school and upon request in high school with an
>adaptive tech instructor, an O and M instructor and a TVI who were
>sometimes
>one individual qualified for all three and sometimes three different
>people.
>This is really frightening.  I am not just jumping on a band wagon
>here.
>This honestly scares me.  What drives me crazy is that the blind
>people
>around here are very old people who used to be active in NFB or ACB,
>or
>both, and now just sit around and talk about the good old days and
>drink
>coffee, the younger ones are too busy workking their tails off to
>start a
>chapter of either organization from scratch and restructure it to be
>useful,
>our only local chapter is ACB with the afore mentioned old people more
>interested in talking than acting.  I am thanking the powers that be
>one
>more time right now for giving me a kick ass totally blind mom who
>fought
>for me every step of the way so that I can do that for my son.  This
>is
>really upsetting, because our district would buy me things I didn't
>need
>then just toss them in storage, such as accidentally buying me braille
>books
>I had already gotten on tape and read, low vision adaptive tech that I
>couldn't see and the wrong calculator or the large print text book
>instead
>of the electronic or braille one, because of an error by the company
>that
>made the product, that were never returned and exchanged or sold or
>donated
>to other districts.  I knew not every state had a comission, but I
>didn't
>realize that that meant that other states might not have a similar
>organization that was just called something else.  I thank you for
>some
>pperspective.
>
>The only thing that I wanted to take slight issue with is the
>assertion that
>different learning styles don't exist or are not influential.  If they
>were
>not, then practices such as see it, say it, write it, would not be so
>effective.  Also, multiple intelligences and their different
>combinations
>are what cause the different learning styles to exist, so saying that
>Gardiner's multiple intelligences are real but different learning
>styles are
>not is sort of contradictory.
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "H. Field" <missheather at comcast.net>
>To: "NFBnet Blind Kid Mailing List,(for parents of blind children)"
><blindkid at nfbnet.org>
>Sent: Saturday, April 10, 2010 7:19 PM
>Subject: Re: [blindkid] Math technology
>
>
> > Hello everyone,
> > It is a tragic truth that people who have the requisite knowledge
> > and
> > training to produce braille of any kind, let alone graphics using a
> > Tiger embosser, are incredibly rare in most parts of this country.
> > If
> > we place this debate in the context of the acute shortage of trained
> > teachers of the blind, and school districts floundering beneath the
> > weight of budgeting problems, then it is not difficult to understand
> > why there is a lack of qualified paraprofessionals/transcribers and
> > expensive, adaptive equipment.
> >
> > People who have grown up in large cities with big school districts
> > which serve a number of blind children may not have experienced this
> > shortage reality. and, the magic words, Commission for the blind,
> > roll
> > easily off the tongue of those who live in states that have them.
> > However, the harsh reality is that many states do not have a
> > commission for the blind and the section of the human services
> > department that oversees blind services in these states has little
> > or
> > no involvement in providing early intervention or student services.
> > So, no money, equipment or people to set it up or run it will come
> > to
> > school districts from blind services in many states.
> >
> > Furthermore, blindness is a low incidence disability and in many
> > parts
> > of the United States, there may only be one or two blind children
> > receiving services in any given county. With the neighbourhood
> > school
> > policy these students Often attend schools at the opposite ends of
> > the
> > county. Many of these students don't have a teacher of the blind
> > because the schools can't find one to hire. They also usually don't
> > have a braille transcriptionist. These students are usually served
> > through the resource centres at their state school for the blind.
> > The
> > general special education teacher at the school orders books,
> > braille
> > writers and other such equipment, using Quota funds, and the
> > resource
> > centers send the school the materials and equipment.  The idea of a
> > school district buying an embosser that produces graphs and then
> > finding someone willing and able to run it is simply a pipe dream
> > for
> > most blind students right now. This lack of qualified teachers and
> > the
> > high cost of adaptive equipment for blind children is a large factor
> > in the tragic trend to "unblind", many children. Much easier to call
> > them "low vision" get them a cctv and a parttime aide and call it
> > service than to try to solve such a complex and difficult problem.
> >
> > The question then, becomes one of practicality. What will work to
> > get
> > the mathematical concepts across and the lessons learned for blind
> > children. Low tech, inexpensive solutions like the Sewell Raised
> > Line
> > Drawing kit and the Draftsman from APH, wikki sticks, string and
> > raised line graph paper, all used by the qualified sighted math
> > teacher, an aide and/or parents will be the answer. A few, very
> > bright
> > and accomplished, science and math students may have the opportunity
> > to learn all the skills, using various high tech, adaptive
> > equipment.
> > But, for most students, the low tech solutions remain the only,
> > realistic means by which they can be taught complex mathematical
> > concepts.  We can wish it were otherwise and proclaim that, to be
> > fair
> > and just it should be different, but that won't change things. There
> > are many practicalities working against high tech equipment
> > opportunities for most blind students, attending local schools. The
> > NFB has an outstanding record in working to give blind students
> > opportunities to excel in the fields of mathematics and science, but
> > this education question is a very complex, many factored issue and
> > the
> > answers aren't simple.
> >
> > Incidentally, in case any parents are worried about their child not
> > getting taught in their preferred learning style, I submit the
> > following for consideration. This is an unpopular truth, while the
> > concept of, learning styles, is very dear to the hearts of pop
> > science, and dear to the bank accounts of those who produce and
> > market
> > educational materials, and people use personal, anecdotal
> > experiences
> > to prove their existence to themselves, no real aptitude treatment
> > interaction has been proven to exist. Thus, when students are taught
> > in their preferred style by a teacher who teaches in that preferred
> > teaching style, and other classes containing students with all the
> > learning styles are taught with no special attention to learning
> > styles, when their school year learning outcomes are compared, the
> > difference in achievement is not significant. Note. I am not
> > referring
> > to the theory of multiple intelligences.
> >
> > Regards,
> >
> > Heather Field
> >
> > Original Message -----
> > From: "Heather" <craney07 at rochester.rr.com>
> > To: "NFBnet Blind Kid Mailing List,(for parents of blind children)"
> > <blindkid at nfbnet.org>
> > Sent: Saturday, April 10, 2010 11:01 AM
> > Subject: Re: [blindkid] Math technology
> >
> >
> > I am sure that there is variation, but my experience in upstate New
> > York is
> > that Boces the agency that provides special education services also
> > has
> > adaptive technology instructors that work with the schools, and if
> > they do
> > not have someone who has the expertese, then the Comission for the
> > Blind
> > will provide the service or track down someone who does provide the
> > service.
> > To the origonal woman who asked for the advice, what state are you
> > in?
> > Is
> > there something like Boces or Vesid or CBVH or a local blindness
> > organization?
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "Mike Freeman" <k7uij at panix.com>
> > To: "NFBnet Blind Kid Mailing List,(for parents of blind children)"
> > <blindkid at nfbnet.org>
> > Sent: Saturday, April 10, 2010 11:35 AM
> > Subject: Re: [blindkid] Math technology
> >
> >
> > You forget the raised-line drawing kit. And school districts in my
> > experience don't often have the real geeks of which you speak below.
> > It's
> > plug-and-play all the way!
> >
> > Mike
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "Heather" <craney07 at rochester.rr.com>
> > To: "NFBnet Blind Kid Mailing List,(for parents of blind children)"
> > <blindkid at nfbnet.org>
> > Sent: Saturday, April 10, 2010 7:55 AM
> > Subject: Re: [blindkid] Math technology
> >
> >
> > The key is to get the adaptive person who probably knows the
> > computer
> > technology of the embosser and the calculator, together with the
> > math
> > teacher who knows how graphs and the mathematical component works,
> > as
> > neither will be able to help your child on their own.  But geekese
> > is
> > pretty
> > similar in dialect between math geeks and computer geeks, so they
> > should be
> > able to figure it out.  And, yes, graphs and some type of graphing
> > calculator will be extremely neccessary, not "if it is absolutely
> > neccessary".  Tracing tools are alright, but there must be graph
> > paper
> > behind the tracing, as a general shape of the graph will not be
> > helpful, if
> > the child needs to assertain which exact point the vertix of the
> > perabola
> > passes through, or whether or not the sine curve is passing through
> > the
> > origin or not.  I hope this helps.  Oh, and as to affording it.  If
> > the
> > school fights it, remind them that A. she needs it, really and truly
> > needs
> > it, B. they can store it carefully and use it for other blind and VI
> > kids
> > coming up in the grades below her and in other schools in the
> > district
> > and
> > C. they are by law required to provide her equal opertunities in
> > education
> > in the least restrictive environment, which includes adapting the
> > graphs and
> > graphing technology for any level of math course that she is
> > cognatively and
> > accademically ready for and that is offered by the school.
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "Mike Freeman" <k7uij at panix.com>
> > To: "NFBnet Blind Kid Mailing List,(for parents of blind children)"
> > <blindkid at nfbnet.org>
> > Sent: Saturday, April 10, 2010 9:35 AM
> > Subject: Re: [blindkid] Math technology
> >
> >
> > I'd try to ascertain (a) who her algebra teacher will be next year
> > and
> > then
> > talk to him/her about the problem, emphasizing that you will assist
> > with
> > drawing of raised-line graphs and perhaps showing him a Sewell
> > raised-line
> > drawing kit to show how impromptu graphs can be made and (b) get a
> > copy of
> > the book to see how much it relies on whizbang technology as opposed
> > to
> > good, old-fashioned reasoning skills. Bear in mind that I am a
> > strong
> > advocate of writing out math problems on a brailewriter.
> >
> > If a graphing calculator proves absolutely necessary, I'd go with
> > one
> > that
> > can produce graphs on a Tiger embosser although for the life of me,
> > how any
> > parent can afford one or, for that matter, how a school district can
> > successfully use one when it probably hasn't got anyone with the
> > requisite
> > skills is beyond me.
> >
> > But one should always approach the problem from the standpoint that
> > it's
> > solvable, because it is. I hope that Steve Jacobson chimes in on
> > this
> > one
> > also.
> >
> > Mike
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "Albert J Rizzi" <albert at myblindspot.org>
> > To: "'NFBnet Blind Kid Mailing List,(for parents of blind
> > children)'"
> > <blindkid at nfbnet.org>
> > Sent: Saturday, April 10, 2010 5:32 AM
> > Subject: Re: [blindkid] Math technology
> >
> >
> > so, Michael what suggestions do you have for her daughter as she
> > works
> > to
> > maintain her grade average and commitment to academic enrichment?
> >
> > Albert J. Rizzi, M.Ed.
> > CEO/Founder
> > My Blind Spot, Inc.
> > 90 Broad Street - 18th Fl.
> > New York, New York  10004
> > www.myblindspot.org
> > PH: 917-553-0347
> > Fax: 212-858-5759
> > "The person who says it cannot be done, shouldn't interrupt the one
> > who is
> > doing it."
> >
> >
> > Visit us on Facebook LinkedIn
> >
> >
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: blindkid-bounces at nfbnet.org
> > [mailto:blindkid-bounces at nfbnet.org]
> > On
> > Behalf Of Mike Freeman
> > Sent: Friday, April 09, 2010 11:07 PM
> > To: NFBnet Blind Kid Mailing List,(for parents of blind children)
> > Subject: Re: [blindkid] Math technology
> >
> > Pat:
> >
> > I'm sure many will disagree with me here but I could never fathom
> > how
> > audio
> > could accurately convey graphics to the blind. In my book, graphs
> > are
> > only
> > crutches to illustrate abstract concepts and math teachers are only
> > as
> > good
> > as they can deal with the abstractions without needing to "picture"
> > everything.
> >
> > Mike Freman, B.A. and M.S. in physics
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "Pat Renfranz" <dblair2525 at msn.com>
> > To: "blindkid" <blindkid at nfbnet.org>
> > Sent: Friday, April 09, 2010 2:36 PM
> > Subject: [blindkid] Math technology
> >
> >
> > My daughter will be taking Algebra II next year in 9th grade. She
> > uses
> > Braille/Nemeth texts with tactile graphics. She's gotten by just
> > fine
> > with
> > relatively low-tech math tools.
> >
> > We are wondering if it would be useful for her to start using an
> > accessible
> > graphing calculator. Does anyone have any practical advice on using
> > one of
> > these programs? I am looking into the Audio Graphing Calculator from
> > ViewPlus and Math Trax from NASA. They both produce an audio signal
> > representing the shape of the function, while the AGC has the
> > advantage of
> > being able to produce tactile graphs on a Tiger embosser. Maybe
> > there
> > are
> > other products available? Our school district has no experience with
> > any of
> > them. Does anyone¹s teenager think this software is worth learning?
> >
> > We are a little nervous about this, because our experience has been
> > that,
> > math is great because you can pretty much always count on a
> > Brailler,
> > paper,
> > and sticky dots from the hardware store to NOT fail and to NOT
> > require
> > specialized training that gets in the way of actually learning the
> > material...
> >
> > Thanks in advance for any help.
> > Pat
> > _______________________________________________
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> >
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> >
> >
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> >
> >
> >
>
>
>--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
> > _______________________________________________
> > blindkid mailing list
> > blindkid at nfbnet.org
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> > for
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> >
>
>
>_______________________________________________
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>
>
>
>
>
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Carol Castellano, President
National Organization of Parents of Blind Children
973-377-0976
carol_castellano at verizon.net
www.nopbc.org  


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