Topic by gfriha 2024-03-17 15:47:08

  • gfriha
  • Shades of newbie
  • Offline
  • Registered: 2024-03-08
  • Posts: 3

Hello.
Some days ago I posted a topic on the playroom's forum asking people how was their lives when talking about science subjects and which things did they use to work with math formulas, or this kind of things. Someone told me that maybe here I could get more answers.
The post is here https://qcsalon.net/es/forum2000000/topic122179
but I'll copy the content here. I would appreciate your answers. You don't necessarily have to answer my questions, explaining whatever you consider it will be useful. Thanks!


The post:
Good evening! I am doing a project related to accessible mathematics and I would need your opinions and experiences as we are all living in different places and probably all have had different experiences. In the end there are many resources but they are little known and I'm sure there are things I've never heard of.
My final idea is to be able to collect as many resources as I can so that as many people as possible can access them.
I would like to know what you have used over the years: did you start using perkins? an abacus? Directly a computer? What programs do you use now on your computer? Any particular screen reader? Any math editor for writing? Programming languages? Do you know any OCR (i.e., any program that transforms pdfs or handwritten text to other formats)? Do you know any web to do calculations that is accessible, or at least usable? How do you graph: do you draw or use applications on the computer? I listen to anything that has to do with science. I would appreciate experiences, however simple they may be or even if you think everyone knows them, maybe not, and everything will be useful to me or others.
The project will take several months, because what they ask me at the university is a specific format and first I want to focus on that, which basically would be to make comparisons with latex to html with some converters and see which is more accessible and why. But when I deliver it I will continue with the collection of resources as I said, with the idea of making something public so that people can find it. I also intend to keep updating it, because I am very interested in the field.
Hope to read your experiences and opinions
Thanks smile

Quote Post 1

Thumbs up

Reply by Dan Gero 2024-03-26 05:24:29

  • From: North Carolina
  • Registered: 2012-07-30
  • Posts: 4,689
  • User Karma: 501

I'm just bumping this to the top because this would definitely help me as well. I am planning on enrolling in college in the very near future to study computer science, and I think I'm going to have to work with math content myself.

Discord: dangero#0750
Steam: dangero2000
TWITCH
YOUTUBE and YOUTUBE DISCORD SERVER

Dan Gero's Website

Quote Post 2

Thumbs up

Reply by magurp244 2024-03-26 06:42:16 (edited by magurp244 2024-03-27 09:38:55)

  • Registered: 2015-05-30
  • Posts: 3,194
  • User Karma: 942

Hmm, well there are a few things that come to mind. One is the accessible online calculator Desmos, along with an accessible graphing tool called GSK. Sadly it looks like the original url for GSK's gone dead, I managed to excavate it on the wayback machine, but it doesn't look like it stored any of the actual files for it, although there does seem to be an email for one of its creators, a Suzanne Balik at [email protected]. Might dig into that a bit more.

-BrushTone v1.3.3: Accessible Paint Tool
-AudiMesh3D v1.0.0: Accessible 3D Model Viewer

Quote Post 3

Thumbs up

Reply by Jaseoffire 2024-03-26 08:25:53

  • Registered: 2017-03-30
  • Posts: 987
  • User Karma: 133

Right. So, when I started, I mostly had access to an abacus, a perkins brailler, and a variety of calculators over the years. In high school, I gained access to a talking calculator that was built on top of a Ti83. It was called a Ti83 Orion+. I haven't had to use it recently as I'm not doing mmuch calculus lately, but I see myself probably needing it again soon. Anyways, on top of that I started developing my own notation that was more linear in form, until I was introduced to latex. You'd be surprised how much that allows for communication both ways. Now, during my chemistry phase, I use latex quite a bit. Especially the chemical notation stuff. I also use the Web2.0 scientific calculator these days for my scientific calculator needs. That's pretty much a rough overview of my current setup and a bit on history. Sorry if this post is not very well organized, I'm writing this when I should be sleeping.

I have a website now.
"C: God's Programming Language
C++: The object-oriented programming language of a pagan deity" -- The Red Book
"There, but for the grace of God go I"

Quote Post 4

Thumbs up

Reply by Tarquin 2024-03-26 12:12:15

  • Registered: 2021-01-26
  • Posts: 271
  • User Karma: 18

I started off with a braille writer up through all of my high school math. I also used a TI83 talking calculator up through 8th grade and then switched to desmos after that. Desmos is awesome by the way, I have yet to run into something that isn't accessible or at least usable. Only now that I'm taking a few community college courses have I started doing math digitally. I use latex and MathML. I connect my HIMS braille Sense to my computer to read, use my mantis to work out problems, and then enter my completed work and the answer in latex on my computer. All of my math is given to me in MathML, and note you'll have to pay for that. It ain't cheap either but it works quite well.

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.
Psalm 23 4

Quote Post 5

Thumbs up

Reply by ogomez92 2024-03-27 07:58:37

  • Registered: 2010-02-08
  • Posts: 2,803
  • User Karma: 337

This post sparked my interest, as I used to work for Wiris, the guys who make MathType (the new MathPlayer). It's mostly an editor to write maths in many platforms, and combined with MathCat it works great.

When I was little I never really understood maths, it hasn't been until I became more interested in development that I took the time to try and understand some concepts though it's still a big mystery haha.

They also have a graph tool which we were planning to make accessible before I left, maybe you want to check them out for your project if you haven't heard of them already.

https://www.wiris.com/en/mathtype/

I'd be interested to know what you guys think even though I don't work for them anymore.

ReferenceError: Signature is not defined.

ogomez92's Website

Quote Post 6

Thumbs up

Reply by ogomez92 2024-03-27 08:01:12

  • Registered: 2010-02-08
  • Posts: 2,803
  • User Karma: 337

@3 I'd be interested to learn more about GSK, how did it work? How were the graphs created in an accessible way?

I hope you can provide more info. Were the results also accessible? were you able to make charts with data and so on?

ReferenceError: Signature is not defined.

ogomez92's Website

Quote Post 7

Thumbs up

Reply by magurp244 2024-03-27 09:48:17 (edited by magurp244 2024-03-27 15:12:48)

  • Registered: 2015-05-30
  • Posts: 3,194
  • User Karma: 942

@7
It seems that it uses a form of node system for navigating around, there's more information on it in their academic paper GSK: Universally Accessible Graph SKetching. I fixed the link in my previous post, it leads to a snapshot on the wayback machine of what remains of the GSK page. I've reached out to one of the developers to see if they may still have some of the binaries, but haven't heard back yet.

edit: Ugh, fixed the link to the academic paper.

-BrushTone v1.3.3: Accessible Paint Tool
-AudiMesh3D v1.0.0: Accessible 3D Model Viewer

Quote Post 8

Thumbs up

Reply by ogomez92 2024-03-27 10:49:31

  • Registered: 2010-02-08
  • Posts: 2,803
  • User Karma: 337

That is very interesting!
while we're on the topic of graphs, has anyone ever used accessible chart creating tools? I know that Microsoft Excel can do it, but has anyone used it to some extent?

ReferenceError: Signature is not defined.

ogomez92's Website

Quote Post 9

Thumbs up

Reply by gfriha 2024-04-03 19:42:31

  • gfriha
  • Shades of newbie
  • Offline
  • Registered: 2024-03-08
  • Posts: 3

Thank you @3 I'll take a loook, I only knew desmos.
About accessible graphing tools I only know about Highcharts or braille R, because a friend did a project for university about them. But they are related to coding, so I guess they are not usable for everyone.

Quote Post 10

Thumbs up

Reply by Samuel 2024-04-04 01:23:33

  • Samuel
  • Galaxy stranger
  • Offline
  • From: United States
  • Registered: 2021-06-09
  • Posts: 78
  • User Karma: 1

So re: My math experience. As with everyone else, I started with a brailler, which, by my standards, is heavy and clunky at best. Since I have some useful vision, having numbers and stuff in a large enough font on a whiteboard helped in elementary school, so that was kind of ncice. I started using a braille display during 5th grade, an Alva BC640, but I didn't really use math for it, and the state tests didn't use Math ML, so I wasn't aware of that. I get my first focus display in 8th grade, plus a math window, which is esentially a board with tiles on it to show certain things in braille. The tiles fell off easily though, so it was just dead weight through 8th grade and all of my freshman year. When I was required to take online classes, my focus became much more relied upon, plus NVDA. Basically got me through all of high school. Now that I am in college, I still use NVDA, but am now a proud owner of a Mantis Q40, which was obtained through VR in Oregon, and I can now efficiently show my work on a braille display.

Quote Post 11

Thumbs up

Reply by ogomez92 2024-04-04 06:09:30

  • Registered: 2010-02-08
  • Posts: 2,803
  • User Karma: 337

Eh I've looked at highcharts, looks like an API which generates charts isn't it? Kind of cool actually, sounds useful

ReferenceError: Signature is not defined.

ogomez92's Website

Quote Post 12

Thumbs up

Reply by ogomez92 2024-04-04 06:11:16

  • Registered: 2010-02-08
  • Posts: 2,803
  • User Karma: 337

At Dow Jones we use something called market data (I'm still new to the company) but it's kind of similar, you just give it a stock symbol and it generates a chart, but it generates kind of inaccessible charts apparently, not the right color shades etc so that's why I was looking for some alternatives thanks.

ReferenceError: Signature is not defined.

ogomez92's Website

Quote Post 13

Thumbs up