Category: accessible Devices
hEY GUYS! sO i WAS WONDERING IF ANY OF YOU KNOW OF ANY ACCESSABLE GRAPHING CALCULATOR SOMETHING OR OTHER THAT ISN'T THE COMPUTER PROGRAM, OR THE PROGRAMS WE CAN DOWNLOAD ON TO THOSE aph BRAILLE 'N SPEAKS. tHE AUDIO OF A GRAPH JUST DOESN'T WORK FOR ME, AND MY PRECALC CLASS IS ABOUT TO START THE STATISTICS UNIT, AND i DON'T REALLY KNOW IF THERE IS A BETTER WAY SINCE HEARING THE GRAPH DOESN'T REALLY HELp. Lol, didn't realize I was on caps lock...anyway, if you guys know of anything else, letting me know would be greatly appreciated.
Back in the dark ages, about twenty years ago, the American Foundation for the blind used to make a plain rubber mat with raised lines on it forming a cartesian plane. You could then use map pins to plot various points on a graph and connect the points with rubber bands.
I know, that's not a graphing calculator, but it works just as well once you get the hang of it.
Hope this helps.
Bob
I don't know of anything else, I'm taking precalculus. I have a braillest, and I just, tell her what to do, and she reads me out the results. I think that's the best course of action.
Does the computer program work? My people are thinking of downloading it, and I don't have faith it'll work.
A few years ago, there was a company that made two math programs called virtual pencil and virtual algebra. These were very speech-friendly programs. I don't know if they are still around, but it might be worth doing a google to see what you can find. I don't know how well the graphing functions worked, but the way they handled equations was to speak the material on the left of the equals sign on the left speaker, and what was on the right side of the equals sign on the right speaker. Later than the dark ages of which Bob spoke, (should we call them the pre-dawn ages?) the TRACE center in Wisconsin did some early research using sound placement to give one a sense of where things were located on the computer screen.
Good luck,
Lou
The APH's Braille 'n Speak Scholar, now has the graphing calculator feature built in, so you get a notetaker which would also include regular, scientific, and graphing calculator features as well. That's the only portable graphing calculator I know of, besides the above-mentioned software programs.
Thanks for your suggestions guys. As far as the braillist thing, I thought of that but I have exit exams where everyone's required to do things independently and no adult can help or whatever, so I'm trying to find another option. I may look into getting another APH braille scholar, or look at the options Lou suggested.
I was at a meeting this morning, and this subject came up. The company that developped Virtual Pencil Algebra was Henter Math.
Lou
yeah, but are these things capable of doing graphs, finding zeros, doing inverses, and all the other things pre calc requires?
i wonder if the aph scholar is capable of doing that...
In the last analysis, a graph is nothing but a picture of the solutions to equations. Pictures we don't do so good, but equations we do. <lol>
This might take some out-of-the-box thinking and discussions with your instructors to see what will work.
Good luck.
Bob
yeah so are they good enough or not cuz i need one for algebra 2. Have anyone had any success with these programs?
not the lap top one...Idk the braille scholar one is okay. and I like Lou's idea.
Actually, the more I think about it, I like Bob's idea better. As they are truly a picture of an equation, the old cartisian plot is a great tactile way to show with tactile components the graph. American Printing House has a tactile graphics kit as well. The tools in that could really do some dammage to someone you didn't like as well (lol).
Lou