Phy1000: introduction to accessible physics concepts

Table of contents

• Preface
  • General
  • Impetus for this collection of modules
  • Prerequisite requirements
  • Supplemental material
• Discussion
  • Algebra
  • Using a graph board
  • Using a protractor
  • JavaScript programming
  • Trigonometry
  • Pictures and diagrams
  • Greek characters
• Resources
• Miscellaneous

Preface

General

This is the first module in a collection of modules designed to make physics accessible to blind students.

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This book is intended to supplement but not to replace the textbook in an introductory high school or collegephysics course.

Impetus for this collection of modules

I am a professor of Computer Information Technology at Austin Community College in Austin, TX. For the past couple of years, I have had the privilege ofteaching object-oriented Java programming to a blind student. That has gone very well.

Assist a student in physics

During a recent semester, I volunteered to assist this student in her efforts to successfully complete a physics course that she was taking in anotherdepartment of the college. I quickly learned that she faced significant barriers in this endeavor, not the least of which was thegeneral lack of accessibility provided by the electronic versions of the textbook. (The student had access to both pdf and Word formats of the textbook.)

Not compatible with accessibility tools

I am not visually impaired, so for me the textbook was adequate. However, it contains numerous elements that don't work well when viewed by ablind student using accessibility tools such as an audible screen reader and an electronic line-by-line Braille display.

Pictures and diagrams

For example, each chapter contains numerous pictures and diagrams that are an integral part of the teaching material. In some cases, there is a reasonableverbal explanation for a picture or diagram and in some cases there is little or no explanation. Therefore, a blind student using this particular textbook isdeprived of a significant portion of the teaching material.

Physics can be difficult under the best of conditions

Learning physics is difficult for many students even when they have full access to all of theavailable teaching resources. Learning physics is even more difficult when the student is deprived of some of the available teaching resources.

Greek characters

While it is not surprising that the textbook is full of Greek characters and other fancy typesetting elements such as subscripts, superscripts, vectorsymbols, etc., this also leads to difficulties relative to the use of a screen reader and Braille display.