[nfbcs] Seeking suggestions for helping blind students with math

Tue Jan 17 14:58:03 UTC 2017

Let's entertain the idea for a while. Considering the CS context, how should
equations and formulas be represented. We need to answer the following
questions:

* How should equations and formulas be represented to screen reader users?
* How should equations and formulas be represented in braille?
* Who is responsible from a legal standpoint on the representation of math?
* What options are available for the different learning styles?
* How can context be promoted in formulas or equations? Example: 5^4 is 5 to
the 4th power, and 4%1 is the modulous of 1 divided by 4. How can the ^ and
% symbols have relevance in these expressions? When I first started, they
weren't so obvious.

-----Original Message-----
From: nfbcs [mailto:nfbcs-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Walker, Michael E
via nfbcs
Sent: Tuesday, January 17, 2017 9:16 AM
To: NFB in Computer Science Mailing List <nfbcs at nfbnet.org>
Cc: Walker, Michael E <michael.e.walker3 at boeing.com>
Subject: Re: [nfbcs] Seeking suggestions for helping blind students with
math

Yes, Andy certainly has a point there. There is more than one way to teach
math: graphing and advanced calculations. Actually, there are three things
that the standard must consider: age, learning style, and the course the
student is taking. In College Algebra, the student is not going to be
performing a whole lot of advanced calculations, like they would in upper
level math courses, like calculus and above. When I say "Calculus," I am not
referring to Business Calculus. I am talking about the regular Calculus
sequence that math, science, and engineering majors take. As far as what
tools to use to teach math, yes some blind students may do better with
tactile graphs. Others may do better with existing software or through some
basic programming skills in a programming language. Again, that is why it
goes back to the student's learning style, course, and age. Thank you for
sharing this perspective, Andy. I also agree with your comparison to
programming environments. I might like using Eclipse for certain projects,
where others may like Notepad++ or NetBeans. We should therefore strive for
equal access across all environments and learning styles that we can.

-----Original Message-----
From: nfbcs [mailto:nfbcs-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Andy B. via nfbcs
Sent: Tuesday, January 17, 2017 8:07 AM
To: 'NFB in Computer Science Mailing List'
Cc: Andy B.
Subject: Re: [nfbcs] Seeking suggestions for helping blind students with
math

The problem with accessibility standards is they might not support a
student's learning style. In my family, there are three different learning
styles when it comes to math. One who can see graphs, but doesn't understand
advanced calculations. Another that has problems understanding all of it,
and the last one, who understands a fair amount of both. If we decide that
tactile graphs are part of the standard, then the standard excludes me as a
math learner because I don't do well with tactile representations of visual
concepts. If we say audio output will be part of the standard, then it puts
most people out of the learning pool because audio output for graphs is a
very difficult skill to learn. In our example, we left out the person that
can see graphs, but doesn't understand advanced calculations. The standard
must consider age groups and learning style. Further, there must be more
than one standard to account for these differences in age and learning
styles.
Programming IDEs are similar. There isn't a single accessibility standard
because of the varying learning styles out there. Personally, I am glad
Apple, Google, Freedom Scientific, the ACB, NFB, or other major organization
didn't lock me into their workflow. There is a difference between making a
student a puppet and teaching from accessible material. This begs the
question: What does accessible math or programming materials look like?
Putting aside preferences biases, etc, what should the standard look like?

-----Original Message-----
From: nfbcs [mailto:nfbcs-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Walker, Michael E
via nfbcs
Sent: Tuesday, January 17, 2017 8:40 AM
To: NFB in Computer Science Mailing List <nfbcs at nfbnet.org>
Cc: Walker, Michael E <michael.e.walker3 at boeing.com>
Subject: Re: [nfbcs] Seeking suggestions for helping blind students with
math

Hi Rick, I totally agree with you about the idea of several solutions that
are time consuming, and no single body to enforce a standard. I guess that
is why at this time, I maintain the belief that we need to figure out what
to use, based on the math course the student is taking, and his or her
degree program.

-----Original Message-----
From: nfbcs [mailto:nfbcs-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Rick Thomas via
nfbcs
Sent: Tuesday, January 17, 2017 6:20 AM
To: 'NFB in Computer Science Mailing List'
Cc: Rick Thomas
Subject: Re: [nfbcs] Seeking suggestions for helping blind students with
math

Hi Guys:
Math is another whole animal as is diagramming.
Andy has found a package he has been able to use to work through his Masters
Degree using it to produce diagrams when necessary.
As for math that is something folks have talked about and tried to address
for many years now.
Recently I tried the modern solutions and found them all wanting so badly
that I gave up trying to learn advanced math as a hobby and the folks on the
blind math lists indicate they still have to use audio reproductions of
materials or braille reproductions when they can get them.
As programmers, hopefully somewhat advanced, you might think that there
would be a solid solution and you would be correct - several of them
actually.
The problem, as usual, is not that there is no technological solutions but
that there is not one technological solution and there is no enforcement
body to ensure a solution is implemented.
The current solutions are very time consuming, and thus expensive,  to
implement by authors and publishers and only work marginally well for screen
reader users unless every I is dotted and t crossed in some pretty detailed,
confusing and time consuming  processes required of authors and publishers.
Thus most authors and publishers avoid them if they can and only do enough
to get government approval when they are required to do so.
But you all know this I am sure so I will just leave it at we need some
organization with the power to organize, analyze, design, implement and
force a solid, easy to use  and viable solution via the government or
nothing will get better - oh wait, isnt this nfb thingy suppose to be such
an organization (confused look on my face).
Rick USA

-----Original Message-----
From: nfbcs [mailto:nfbcs-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Jude DaShiell via
nfbcs
Sent: Monday, January 16, 2017 4:06 PM
To: Andy Borka via nfbcs <nfbcs at nfbnet.org>
Cc: Jude DaShiell <jdashiel at panix.com>
Subject: Re: [nfbcs] Seeking suggestions for helping blind students with
math

I would think even for an Information Science Major latex would get real
useful in at least two kinds of exercises.  First production of flowcharts
and second production of data flow diagrams.  It could probably do other
things really well too.

On Mon, 16 Jan 2017, Andy Borka via nfbcs wrote:

> Date: Mon, 16 Jan 2017 12:56:04
> From: Andy Borka via nfbcs <nfbcs at nfbnet.org>
> To: NFB in Computer Science Mailing List <nfbcs at nfbnet.org>
> Cc: Andy Borka <sonfire11 at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [nfbcs] Seeking suggestions for helping blind students 
> with math
> 
> It is a test method of learning something. If you can teach it to 
> someone
that doesn?t know the subject, then you have learned it well.
>
>> On Jan 16, 2017, at 12:18 PM, Sabra Ewing via nfbcs 
>> <nfbcs at nfbnet.org>
wrote:
>> 
>> Yes, but that is a very complicated way to go about things, 
>> especially
when programs already exist.
>> 
>> Sabra Ewing
>> 
>>> On Jan 16, 2017, at 11:09 AM, Jude DaShiell via nfbcs 
>>> <nfbcs at nfbnet.org>
wrote:
>>> 
>>> That would work for the business end; that would very probably not 
>>> work
for the scientific or engineering end.
>>> 
>>> Since I had already learned to program in basic before I studied
statistics I wrote many small programs that actually did the statistics
calculations on entered data and my instructor told me I would understand
statistics better that way doing that kind of programming since I could
explain it to the computer.
>>> 
>>>> On Mon, 16 Jan 2017, Walker, Michael E via nfbcs wrote:
>>>> 
>>>> Date: Mon, 16 Jan 2017 10:22:15
>>>> From: "Walker, Michael E via nfbcs" <nfbcs at nfbnet.org>
>>>> To: "nfbcs at nfbnet.org" <nfbcs at nfbnet.org>
>>>> Cc: "Walker, Michael E" <michael.e.walker3 at boeing.com>
>>>> Subject: Re: [nfbcs] Seeking suggestions for helping blind students 
>>>> with math Hi, what worked for me when taking math classes was using 
>>>> my
PAC Mate Omni with a Braille display. Since I only had to take lower level
math classes like college algebra, basic calculus (also often called
business calculus), basic probability and statistics, and business
statistics, I didn't worry about fancy math packages like LaTeX for learning
the concepts. I know that LaTeX is a markup language of its own, that one
must spend time learning. For college algebra and calculus, what often got
me by for doing things with fractions was denoting by parentheses. For
example, I might write something like (x+3)/(x+5). Those opening and closing
parentheses would make the operator precedence more clear in terms of what
should be in the numerator and denominator. For statistics, we sometimes
just used word form, instead of the special mathematical symbols (i.e. x
bar). Since the statistics classes were for business majors, we often used
Excel to perform our calculations.
>>>> 
>>>> I know there will be folks who disagree with me on this list in 
>>>> terms
of the fact that you need to know the actual math symbols, but also remember
that I wasn't aiming to become a blind mathematician. My goal was to work in
IT, such as with installing servers and writing business application
software, so what I mentioned above still got me by just fine. I got A's and
B's in all my math courses.
>>>> 
>>>> Mike
>>>> _______________________________________________
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>>> 
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