[nfbcs] Seeking suggestions for helping blind students with math

Greg Kearney gkearney at gmail.com
Tue Jan 17 15:25:20 UTC 2017 

Some time ago I worked on a program that I never finished that would read aloud math expressions written in the TeX mathematical typesetting system. Is there still a need for such a thing?

Greg

> On Jan 17, 2017, at 8:58 AM, Andy B. via nfbcs <nfbcs at nfbnet.org> wrote:
> 
> 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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>> 
>> 
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