[Athen] Accommodating blind students in math

[Will Pines via athen-list]

Regarding:

   - Student wants to do all their work in Nemeth Braille, but how will it
   get transcribed for the professor grading the assignment?

Presently, we have a student who completes Math using Braille display,
saves to a USB drive plugged into braille display, in empty root folder as
Word docx, and then print that out to give to instructor for grading. The
exported document is in standard Word text with math equations. We have to
do some workarounds sometimes. After the last braille note update, student
has to copy and paste braille work into document as he goes. This seems to
fix the issue of some math being translated and some math not being
translated.


On Fri, Jan 30, 2026 at 10:19 AM Deborah Armstrong via athen-list <
athen-list at u.washington.edu> wrote:


> I’m always asked questions about this and I hardly have many answers.

> There are tons of websites on the subject but the target audience is

> teachers of the visually impaired in K-12.

>

> I know the Microsoft Word equation editor is accessible and I of course

> know about MathML and the tools for reading it.

>

> And I know a tiny bit of LaTEX and could learn more if needed. I know

> about the Nemeth Braille charts from NBP – they are wonderful!

>

> But what are folks doing in the following situations:

>

>    - Student recently lost their sight and so doesn’t know Braille. How

>    are you helping them to learn how to show their work when they turn in

>    assignments?

>    - Student wants to do all their work in Nemeth Braille, but how will

>    it get transcribed for the professor grading the assignment?

>    - Student needs to be tutored but the tutor doesn’t know Braille or

>    the student doesn’t know how to work problems because they did all their

>    math education when sighted and they don’t know Braille.

>    - Student needs to take remedial math but cannot see the whiteboard so

>    is lost in class.

>

> I can jabber all day about screen readers and Math-ML, Braille displays

> and such, but this is not the answer people need. We are a community

> college and get many students whose last math class was two decades ago

> when they had vision, or they “suck at math”, need tutoring and failed most

> math in high school. And unlike other subjects, most instructors use highly

> visual methods to teach it.

>

> I have found Khan academy works wonders for low-vision students who can

> take their time, magnify the videos and don’t feel pressured. But it

> doesn’t work for blind students as without being able to see the video you

> cannot easily grasp the concepts.

>

> Also there are more and more publisher-supplied math labs without any real

> idea which ones are accessible and which are not. Is anyone grading these

> for accessibility? All are behind paywalls.

>

> I wish someone working towards a masters in education would create a fully

> online, fully accessible remedial math course under a creative commons

> license. Then we wouldn’t have to try to accommodate every individual need

> for every course with its changing editions of textbooks and each teacher

> having a different pedagogy.

>

> I’ve played with the idea of writing a web-based “electric pencil” but

> maybe one exists already where you could enter equations with a simple

> interface allowing a blind student and sighted tutor to work easily

> together. That would be so cool and maybe I’ll do it when I retire. Right

> now I’m often too tired after working and commuting all day to write much

> code.

>

> --Debee

>

>

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-- 


Best,

*WILL PINES*, *Disability Specialist*

Accessible Technology Specialist

Student Disability Resource Center

*he/him/his*



University of California, Riverside

900 University Avenue

1228 Student Services Building

Riverside, CA 92521

Phone: 951-827-3861 | Email: wilbert.pines at ucr.edu



Schedule an Appointment <https://bit.ly/30ghhv1>



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