Project Math Access DVD 04 - Graphing Part 2- Part 01 Transcript Start Audio Description: Part one, the accessible graphing calculator, or AGC. KAPPERMAN: Rob, today we would like to see the Accessible Graphing Calculator in action, and The Tiger Max Braille Embosser, which we want you to illustrate some of the capabilities of both of those tools. I'm especially interested in seeing how the AGC, the Accessible Graphing Calculator, and the Tiger Max can be used in the study of higher level mathematics for blind youngsters, blind students. This is a major problem, a major hurdle in the study of mathematics and the Accessible Graphing Calculator and Tiger Max, in my estimation, are some of the few tools available to these youngsters, and their teachers, to be used so they can master upper level mathematics. So, I'm going to turn it over to you and you can illustrate the capabilities of both of these tools, and so go right ahead. ROB: Great, thanks Gaylen. So, the AGC, I'll just bring it up right now, is essentially the accessible equivalent of a hand-held graphing calculator for a high school math student. The goal of our product is to provide the same core functionality of that tool for a student taking a standardized test or Calculus, Geometry, Trigonometry, you know, high school core math courses. So, I'll just do a quick walk through of that product so you can get an idea of its functionality. I just brought it up, and when you first bring it up it comes up to the “calculator page," and the voices are turned off. The AGC is self-voicing. Some screen readers have problems reading programs that aren‘t really, really, really common, so, we wrote our own voicing structure for this program. So to turn that on it's a “control Q“ or I can go to the “options menu" and and turn on “self-voicing.“ Like I said it comes up to the calculator page, and I can do basic calculations here and have the results spoken, something very simple like AGC: [2 2 4] ROB: 2 plus 2 equals 4. For higher level mathematics, I suggest using this “evaluator tab page"-- Oh gosh, I keep using my mouse-- I am mouse dependent. AGC: [calculator] ROB: I'll openly admit that. So, again the “options menu" is the way to just navigate through all of these different functional areas of the calculator. AGC: [expression] ROB: So if I go the “evaluator expression page", I can type really complicated stuff, AGC: [2 plus 2 minus 2 exponent 3...] ROB: you know, whatever you would like, AGC: [...minus 4]. ROB: I hit enter and the results are there. They're also captured down below here on my expression, kind of results page. This is totally accessible. AGC: [result expression history] ROB: Oh, expression history, that's an intuitive way of calling it. So then a “control R" will read that to me. AGC: [expression history 2 plus 2 2 3 equals minus 4 c underscore I i g h t...] ROB: And I'm going to cancel that, AGC: [ y=0 point 000, y=0 point 000] ROB: Oh, that's annoying, that's reading the graph that is hidden right now. Below that, and I canceled this out, you'll see a series of constants. You can actually define constants in the expression evaluator for arbitrary things that you would want. AGC: [expression] ROB: You know if I would want to set A = .5 AGC: [A equal 0 point 5] ROB: now A = .5. So, if I have AGC: [1 minus A 0.5] ROB: Now that's .5. So, I can set up my own constants during an exam or something or when I'm doing some work. I can calculate a result and then just save that to a constant so I don't have to remember it. This is again that is something that the TI calculators do which is pretty useful.