Mathspeak: An Audio Method for Presenting Mathematical Formulae to Blind Students

This paper describes the problems involved with learning and understanding math for vision impaired students and developing a computer system approach for rendering mathematical formulae into audio form. Access to mathematics is an obstacle for blind students. The lack of easy access to mathematical resources is a barrier to higher education for many blind students and puts them at an unfair disadvantage in school, academia, and industry [1]. Results from the National Assessment of Educational Progress show that there is great disparity between the math skills of students with disabilities and students without disabilities [2]. A methodology for rendering technical documents, in particular, complex mathematical formula, in an audio descriptive form (Mathspeak) is presented in this paper

The Accessibility of Mathematical Notation on the Web and Beyond

This paper serves two purposes. First, it offers an overview of the role of the Mathematical Markup Language (MathML) in representing mathematical notation on the Web, and its significance for accessibility. To orient the discussion, hypotheses are advanced regarding users’ needs in connection with the accessibility of mathematical notation. Second, current developments in the evolution of MathML are reviewed, noting their consequences for accessibility, and commenting on prospects for future improvement in the concrete experiences of users of assistive technologies. Recommendations are advanced for further research and development activities, emphasizing the cognitive aspects of user interface design

AudioFunctions.web: Multimodal Exploration of Mathematical Function Graphs

We present AudioFunctions.web, a web app that uses sonifcation, earcons and speech synthesis to enable blind people to explore mathematical function graphs. The system is designed for personalized access through different interfaces (touchscreen, keyboard, touchpad and mouse) on both mobile and traditional devices, in order to better adapt to different user abilities and preferences. It is also publicly available as a web service and can be directly accessed from the teaching material through a hypertext link. An experimental evaluation with 13 visually impaired participants highlights that, while the usability of all the presented interaction modalities is high, users with different abilities prefer different interfaces to interact with the system. It is also shown that users with higher level of mathematical education are capable of better adapting to interaction modalities considered more diffcult by others

Math in the Dark: Tools for Expressing Mathematical Content by Visually Impaired Students

Blind and visually impaired students are under-represented in the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics disciplines of higher education and the workforce. This is due primarily to the difficulties they encounter in trying to succeed in mathematics courses. While there are sufficient tools available to create Braille content, including the special Nemeth Braille used in the U.S. for mathematics constructs, there are very few tools to allow a blind or visually impaired student to create his/her own mathematical content in a manner that sighted individuals can use. The software tools that are available are isolated, do not interface well with other common software, and may be priced for institutional use instead of individual use. Instructors are unprepared or unable to interact with these students in a real-time manner. All of these factors combine to isolate the blind or visually impaired student in the study of mathematics. Nemeth Braille is a complete mathematical markup system in Braille, containing everything that is needed to produce quality math content at all levels of complexity. Blind and visually impaired students should not have to learn any additional markup languages in order to produce math content. This work addressed the needs of the individual blind or visually impaired student who must be able to produce mathematical content for course assignments, and who wishes to interact with peers and instructors on a real-time basis to share mathematical content. Two tools were created to facilitate mathematical interaction: a Nemeth Braille editor, and a real-time instant messenger chat capability that supports Nemeth Braille and MathML constructs. In the Visually Impaired view, the editor accepts Nemeth Braille input, displays the math expressions in a tree structure which will allow sub-expressions to be expanded or collapsed. The Braille constructs can be translated to MathML for display within MathType. Similarly, in the Sighted view, math constructs entered in MathType can be translated into Nemeth Braille. Mathematical content can then be shared between sighted and visually impaired users via the instant messenger chat capability. Using Math in the Dark software, blind and visually impaired students can work math problems fully in Nemeth Braille and can seamlessly convert their work into MathML for viewing by sighted instructors. The converted output has the quality of professionally produced math content. Blind and VI students can also communicate and share math constructs with a sighted partner via a real-time chat feature, with automatic translation in both directions, allowing VI students to obtain help in real-time from a sighted instructor or tutor. By eliminating the burden of translation, this software will help to remove the barriers faced by blind and VI students who wish to excel in the STEM fields of study

Teaching Learners with Visual Impairment

This book, Teaching Learners with Visual Impairment, focuses on holistic support to learners with visual impairment in and beyond the classroom and school context. Special attention is given to classroom practice, learning support, curriculum differentiation and assessment practices, to mention but a few areas of focus covered in the book. In this manner, this book makes a significant contribution to the existing body of knowledge on the implementation of inclusive education policy with learners affected by visual impairment

3D Resources for Visually Impaired Students

This paper analyzes a process of development of three-dimensional didactic resources created and tested with visually impaired students VIS from Brazilian public schools in which involved designers Middle and High School teachers and students in a collaborative way of creation The importance of interaction among the areas of Engineering Design and Education was analyzed as well The central results were the creation or adaptation of effective teachin

Using Information Communications Technologies to Implement Universal Design for Learning

The purpose of this paper is to assist Ministries of Education, their donors and partners, Disabled Persons Organizations (DPOs), and the practitioner community funded by and working with USAID to select, pilot, and (as appropriate) scale up ICT4E solutions to facilitate the implementation of Universal Design for Learning (UDL), with a particular emphasis on supporting students with disabilities to acquire literacy and numeracy skills. The paper focuses primarily on how technology can support foundational skills acquisition for students with disabilities, while also explaining when, why, and how technologies that assist students with disabilities can, in some applications, have positive impacts on all students’ basic skills development. In 2018, USAID released the Toolkit for Universal Design for Learning to Help All Children Read, section 3.1 of which provides basic information on the role of technologies to support UDL principles and classroom learning. This paper expands upon that work and offers more extensive advice on using ICT4E1 to advance equitable access to high quality learning. Like the UDL toolkit, the audience for this guide is mainly Ministries of Education and development agencies working in the area of education, but this resource can also be helpful for DPOs and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) wishing to pilot or spearhead ICT initiatives. Content for this paper was informed by expert interviews and reviews of field reports during 2018. These included programs associated with United Nations, Zero Project, World Innovation Summit, UNESCO Mobile Learning Awards, and USAID’s All Children Reading: A Grand Challenge for Development. Relevant case studies of select education programs integrating technology to improve learning outcomes for students with disabilities were summarized for this document

Disability resources for the educator

This thesis identifies what disability resources are currently accessible and needed by the educator in order to service the disabled student in the classroom. It is a compilation of medical, academic, financial and equipment resources currently available to the educator