[Athen] Accommodating blind students in math

[Joshua Hori via athen-list]

ShareTheBoard.com will convert whiteboard math into accessible content.

There is LakePinesBraille Equation Editor<https://www.lakepinesbraille.com/ee/> <https://www.lakepinesbraille.com/ee/> which works to display math in the browser and refreshable braille displays at the same time. Meant for blind students and instructors to work on math problems together.

Best,

Joshua

From: athen-list <athen-list-bounces at mailman22.u.washington.edu> on behalf of Will Pines via athen-list <athen-list at u.washington.edu>
Date: Friday, January 30, 2026 at 10:41 AM
To: Deborah Armstrong <armstrongdeborah at fhda.edu>, Access Technology Higher Education Network <athen-list at u.washington.edu>
Subject: Re: [Athen] Accommodating blind students in math

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<mailto: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<mailto:wilbert.pines at ucr.edu>

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

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