I Need to Create a Keyboard
Oct 04, 2017
By
Rose Jenkins
I have a student in an advance mathematics class who has very limited mobility and cannot speak. He is using an assistive device to type out each letter (with one finger) of every word that he needs to say, e.g. "the square root of seven is". It is taking him two to three time as long to complete his tests as it does other students.
I would like to create a palette of common mathematical expressions that he could use to go through the test a little bit faster. I know how to create buttons with the symbols. I don't know how to make his choice of images line up to make an equation. I think I need to create a place holder for each image that he might choose.
Any ideas on how I might achieve this are appreciated.
19 Replies
Can you give me an example of how you would like this to look? Just a mockup would be fine.
The first page shows an idea of what it might look like. The window scrolling window with lines of his work (and the ability to print) are part of my dream. The list of symbols and expressions could go on. It would be helpful if a specific value could be substituted for the variable. Maybe that could be achieved via a few input boxes for theta, alpha and beta.
The second page is just two short examples of what I need him to be able to express.
Ok. Which version of Storyline are you using?
I am using Storyline 2.
Might there be a solution if I had Storyline 3?
I just wanted to know which version so I could create the project in your version. I've got a semi-working demo that I'll send you tomorrow.
Rose, I've attached a project file to demo what I have so far. This is still full of bugs, so expect some strange behavior from some of the buttons. I found a calculator that resembled your mock-up and this one can certainly be modified to change or add buttons to it. This is just something for you to play with, so don't expect too much yet. The project may take a while to publish because of the relatively large web object that is included to render the equation. I would welcome any feedback you have at this point.
Thanks, Michael. This looks good. I would include more of the squared functions since typing is labor intensive for the student. When I published the file, I could see the hotspots over the keys, but they didn't display in the window.Would I need a certain version of java for this to work? I'm hoping that the student can use an iPad for this.
Thanks!
Yes, I only created a few new buttons to begin with, for testing. I'll use your mock-up and create new ones over top of the buttons that are not needed. Hmm, that's strange. Were any of the numbers working? All of the testing I've done so far was in the HTML5 output on the desktop, but I will also test this on the ipad.
No, I could see that there was a hotspot but it didn’t do anything when I
pressed it.
Oh okay. I think that you need to view the published output from the web, so that the javascript runs, in certain browsers. I usually view it locally in Firefox because it doesn't seem to have this limitation, and will run the javascript regardless of whether or not the files are local or on the web.
Got it. I think this will be great! I like that it has the ability to make
fractions. I found that the space key lets you leave the denominator.
That's a great feature.
I can't take credit for any of that. I just included a free javascript library called MathJax into the project, it does all the work of creating the equation. All I did was have Storyline feed it a string created from the pressing of the calculator buttons. I didn't have any time to work on this today, but I should be able to get back to it tomorrow.
For any javascript gurus out there, I actually wanted to use a library called MathQuill which I think gave a much nicer presentation of the equation, but I couldn't figure out how to get it to work with Storyline. I'll look at that again soon though.
Rose, I'm sorry this is taking so long, but Storyline has started changing all of my backslashes into forward slashes again. This seems very random, as I'm publishing with the same version (the most current) that I used the other day. I just wanted to give you an update.
No worries. I appreciate your attention to this.
Rose, please check out this updated version. There is at least one button I don't have working yet, the squareroot with an open parentheses after it. Please let me know what else needs to be added. Thanks.
This looks great! I'm still trying to get this to run on the iPad. But I think this will be a huge help!
I just uploaded it to Scorm Cloud and it's not working from there either. I'm checking that out now. Have you tried it from your LMS or are you just running it from the web?
I’m just running it from Dropbox.
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