[BlindMath] Transitioning from Completely Visual Math to Less Visual Math

[Steve Jacobson]

At the risk of starting a debate that I really don't want to start, I think a case can still be made that it is helpful to do math in braille on paper.  I'm not as up to date as many hear on modern techniques, and I also am not one to claim that there are not other approaches that can work.  However, from what I've seen with my kids, for example, sighted people still use scratch paper sometimes, or have methods of manipulating mathematical equations on tablets in two dimensions.  The problem we face still is that braille displays only display one line at a time.  Some software lets you effectively slide a display up and down, but this doesn't always work seemlessly.  There is a possibility we'll see an affordable display soon with multiple lines, but exactly how that will work isn't a certainty.  I readily admit that even doing math on paper in braille with a braille writer is not as flexible as a pencil and paper, but it is at least similar to a degree.

I know that there are people who have succeeded in math without learning braille and certainly there are likely people who have developed the ability to picture what they need to solve equasions using audio or a single line display.  I'd like to think that I would have developed that ability if I had taken math more recently.  I am therefore not saying that doing braille math on paper, for example, is the only way to succeed.  What I am saying is that it needs to be considered as another tool that can help one to succeed.  It might make the difference whether the student who may have trouble with some of the other techniques available can succeed or not.

Best regards,

Steve Jacobson

-----Original Message-----
From: BlindMath [mailto:blindmath-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Lukasz Grabowski via BlindMath
Sent: Thursday, March 30, 2017 5:01 PM
To: blindmath at nfbnet.org
Cc: Łukasz Grabowski <graboluk at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [BlindMath] Transitioning from Completely Visual Math to Less Visual Math

Nicholas, about textbooks: you probably know this, but just in case: if
you have a refreshable Braille display then  books which are  in mathml
can be (in principle) read on such a braille display using automatic
transcription. However I don't own a braille display so I don't know
what is the quality of transcription. 

However, the piece of software which does the transcription, called
mathplayer (which works for example with nvda), is able  also to read
mathml aloud - this I have checked, and it does a fairly reasonable
job, at least with simple maths, so presumably Braille transcription
is also not too bad.

You can see an example of lecture notes in mathml for a  basic
statistics course at my institution here:
http://www.lancaster.ac.uk/staff/grabows1/accessible/math104/Math104.tex/index.html

(please note that all figures and most of the tables were removed from
those lecture notes, so some parts might be confusing (the tables
which were not removed are likely not very accessible solely with a
screen reader - sorry!). If you
want to test mathplayer, then more involved mathematical formulas start
to appear in chapter 2)

Best,
Łukasz



On Thu, 30 Mar 2017 17:39:32 -0400
Nicholas J via BlindMath <blindmath at nfbnet.org> wrote:

> Hello,
> 
> Thank you for the response about the Sensational Blackboard and
> convention. Is math homework done with similar technology? If
> textbooks are to be translated to braille, I was told before that the
> braille book could take up multiple shelves of a bookshelf since it
> would be so big. Is that still true at the present?
> 
> Thank you,
> Nicholas
> 
> On Tue, Mar 28, 2017 at 11:21 PM, Nicholas J <314nick15 at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> 
> > Hello,
> >
> > I’m considering doing a Master’s in statistics, but I do not want
> > to go back to the technology that I used before. I used a cctv to
> > view the board and zoomtext as a screen magnifier. All the cctvs I
> > have used have still left me not able to see what was happening in
> > most of my classes before and zoomtext made things slower for me
> > because of so much magnification. Right now I am transitioning to
> > using Jaws for the computer, but I am not sure what to do for
> > things like the boards in classes, writing, and things like that. I
> > don’t write notes because I am slow at it since I have to write big
> > and I usually still can’t understand what I wrote because of how
> > quickly I wrote it and how unreadable it is. I have been looking at
> > doing things in braille, but am not sure if that is the best way to
> > go. I thought it might take a lot of time also to learn it. I still
> > think it may be helpful in some situations (maybe graphics which I
> > could almost never discern correctly the more complicated they
> > got). I have been reading through all the posts here about latex
> > and having Jaws read them and other kinds of technologies, but I am
> > not sure what kinds of technology are best for the transition of
> > doing everything visually to doing things less visually. My vision
> > has always stayed the same, but the field I am working in is
> > statistics and it gets very small and specific for notation and
> > everything. Main Question: What technology and how can I do math
> > more electronically and less visually? I am learning Jaws, braille,
> > and Kurzweil.
> >
> >
> > Thank you,
> >
> > Nicholas
> >  
> _______________________________________________
> BlindMath mailing list
> BlindMath at nfbnet.org
> http://nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/blindmath_nfbnet.org
> To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account info for
> BlindMath:
> http://nfbnet.org/mailman/options/blindmath_nfbnet.org/graboluk%40gmail.com
> BlindMath Gems can be found at
> <http://www.blindscience.org/blindmath-gems-home>


_______________________________________________
BlindMath mailing list
BlindMath at nfbnet.org
http://nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/blindmath_nfbnet.org
To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account info for BlindMath:
http://nfbnet.org/mailman/options/blindmath_nfbnet.org/steve.jacobson%40visi.com
BlindMath Gems can be found at <http://www.blindscience.org/blindmath-gems-home>