Learners with Low-Vision and Classroom Accessibility

As educators, we are motivated to provide all learners with the opportunity to succeed, but like anything, it is difficult to fully understand something until you have experienced it yourself. Having a learner with low vision in your class for the first time can be exciting and a little scary. What kind of materials will they need? How will they move about the classroom independently and safely? How can you keep them engaged and positive through their struggles? How can you help them focus on and celebrate their successes when times are tough?

At Carnegie Learning, we know that having a student with a visual impairment can present certain instructional challenges, and we also know that the classroom teacher has an opportunity to make a huge and lasting impact on the student’s attitude toward education, and by extension, on his or her future, and we are committed to supporting you by providing accessible materials for all learners. We want to support you by helping you secure accessible classroom materials. For us, this means making our files available in a format that enables the creation of the materials your student needs in class.

Making Textbooks Accessible through NIMAC

What is NIMAC?

The National Instructional Materials Access Center—NIMAC—was created by IDEA in 2004. It is a federally-funded, searchable, online file repository of K-12 print textbooks in XML based NIMAS format. NIMAS source files can be used to create accessible specialized formats (i.e., Braille, audio, digital, large-print, etc.) of print instructional materials. 

Carnegie Learning and NIMAC

Carnegie Learning is committed to providing accessible materials to all students and has a deep catalog of CL courses available in the NIMAC repository. We work with a vendor to create NIMAS formatted files, which we upload at the NIMAC website. Once NIMAC confirms that the uploaded files are correct and complete, they become available for download.

How can schools obtain the files?

After our files have been successfully uploaded in NIMAC, it is up to the state to continue the process. Most states partner with an organization that produces accessible formats for student who have different print needs. A teacher or other staff member of a US education agency can download the NIMAS books for qualifying students once they are secured by the partner.  

Partners

Partners may include national third-party authorized entities (such as Recording for the Blind & Dyslexic, American Printing House for the Blind, Bookshare.org, and Talking Tapes), regional or state conversion organizations (such as Texas Region IV ESC Braille Services, the California Department of Education Clearinghouse for Specialized Media and Technology , the Kentucky Accessible Materials Consortium, and other state instructional materials resource centers), software developers and file conversion services, and accessible media producers s(uch as Braille transcribers).

Who is eligible?

K-12 students with IEPs are eligible for accounts with the state’s partner.

What to do if you have a student with different print needs.

If you receive notification that you will have a student with different print needs in your class, the first step is to contact the school district office to request the modified materials for the student.

In most cases, the school district office should take it from here, although if they’ve not had a student who requires these materials in the past, there may not be an established protocol that anyone is familiar with. What follows is the typical path to securing materials for a student.

The district should contact their NIMAC partner directly, or transfer the information to the state department of education’s NIMAC Coordinator, who will request that the materials be added to the NIMAC partner’s repository so the materials can be accessed by either a teacher or a designated staff member for local printing.

Online partner resources

Most partners have different online platforms and products for student use. For example, Bookshare.org has Bookshelf, which is a repository where the teacher can assign titles to the student, and the student can download and read books on a screen. Many organizations have web readers, which allow students read books online and take advantage of Google Chrome’s accessibility features.

Student access to these tools will require the district to create an individual account for the student with their partner organization.

Additional information to help your low-vision learners

With the greater availability of authoring tools, educators often opt to create their own supplementary materials to support classroom curriculum. Most of these authoring tools include accessibility options, but sifting through the requirements can be daunting. This website distills down requirements and offers helpful ideas for making self-created materials accessible for all learners. . AEM Center: Designing for Accessibility

If you are curious about accessibility strategies for your low-vision learners, here is a good place to start.  AEM Center: Using Accessible Formats

If you want more ideas on how to craft your physical space to accommodate low-vision learners, this is a great resource.Classroom Adaptations for Students with Low Vision

This is an amazing perspective on visual impairment and its lesser known effects on learning. Project IDEAL: Visual Impairments

Bookshare.org is a great place to explore with your low-vision learners. There is a library of books made accessible in a variety of platforms just waiting to be explored!

Finding your textbooks on NIMAC

You can search NIMAC here https://nimac.overdrive.com/ContentInventory to find out if the materials you need have already been created and uploaded.

If you search NIMAC and don’t find a CL product you need, contact the Carnegie Learning Product Management team at ProductManagementTeam@carnegielearning.com.

It can be about a month from notification to successful NIMAC upload of our files (it’s a process), so the more advanced notice we have, the better.

We look forward to helping you make your low-vision learners' year a huge success!

NIMAS files for Carnegie Learning Titles

National Title NIMAC Identifier ISBN(s)
Carnegie Learning Math Series, Course 1, Student Skills Practice 9781609721350NIMAS 9781609721350
High School Math Solution, Geometry, Skills Practice 9781609725679NIMAS 9781609725679
Carnegie Learning Integrated Math I, Volume 2 9781609726577NIMAS 9781609726577
High School Math Solution, Algebra II, Skills Practice 9781934239919NIMAS 9781934239919
Carnegie Learning Geometry, Student Skills Practice 9781609722173NIMAS 9781609722173
Carnegie Learning Math Series, Course 3, Student Assignments 9781609721152NIMAS 9781609721152
Carnegie Learning Algebra II, Student Skills Practice 9781609722234NIMAS 9781609722234
Middle School Math Solution, Course 3, Skills Practice 9781609728885NIMAS 9781609728885
Carnegie Learning Math Series, Course 1, Volume 1 9781609725846NIMAS 9781609725846
Middle School Math Solution, Course 1 9781609728892NIMAS 9781609728892
High School Math Solution, Integrated Math II, Volume 2 9781609724146NIMAS 9781609724146
Carnegie Learning Algebra II, Student Assignments 9781609722241NIMAS 9781609722241
High School Math Solution, Integrated Math III, Skills Practice 9781609725723NIMAS 9781609725723
Carnegie Learning Geometry, Volume 2 9781609726454NIMAS 9781609726454
Carnegie Learning Math Series, Course 2, Volume 1 9781609725907NIMAS 9781609725907
Carnegie Learning Geometry, Student Assignments 9781609722180NIMAS 9781609722180

Carnegie Learning Math Series, Course 3, Student Skills Practice

9781609721374NIMAS 9781609721374
Geometry, Student Text 9781936152711NIMAS 9781936152711
High School Math Solution, Algebra II, Volume 1 9781609723262NIMAS 9781609723262
Carnegie Learning Integrated Math II, Volume 2 9781609726638NIMAS 9781609726638
Carnegie Learning Integrated Math III, Student Assignments 9781609722364NIMAS 9781609722364
Carnegie Learning Geometry, Volume 1 9781609726447NIMAS 9781609726447
Carnegie Learning Integrated Math II, Student Skills Practice 9781609722296NIMAS 9781609722296
Middle School Math Solution, Course 2, Skills Practice 9781609728878NIMAS 9781609728878
High School Math Solution, Algebra I, Skills Practice 9781934239810NIMAS 9781934239810
Carnegie Learning Integrated Math III, Volume 1 9781609726683NIMAS 9781609726683
Carnegie Learning Integrated Math II, Student Assignments 9781609722302NIMAS 9781609722302
Carnegie Learning Math Series, Course 2, Volume 2 9781609725914NIMAS 9781609725914
High School Math Solution, Integrated Math III, Volume 2 9781609723293NIMAS 9781609723293
Carnegie Learning Math Series, Course 3, Volume 2 9781609725976NIMAS 9781609725976
Carnegie Learning Integrated Math I, Volume 1 9781609726560NIMAS 9781609726560
Carnegie Learning Algebra I, Volume 1 9781609726386NIMAS 9781609726386
High School Math Solution, Integrated Math I, Skills Practice 9781934239865NIMAS 9781934239865
High School Math Solution, Algebra II, Volume 2 9781609723279NIMAS 9781609723279
High School Math Solution, Geometry, Volume 1 9781609724153NIMAS 9781609724153
Algebra II, Student Text 9781934800171NIMAS 9781934800171
High School Math Solution, Geometry, Volume 2 9781609724160NIMAS 9781609724160
Carnegie Learning Integrated Math I, Student Skills Practice 9781609721589NIMAS 9781609721589
High School Math Solution, Integrated Math I 9781934239858NIMAS 9781934239858
Carnegie Learning Integrated Math I, Student Assignments 9781609721596NIMAS 9781609721596
Carnegie Learning Algebra II, Volume 1 9781609726508NIMAS 9781609726508
Middle School Math Solution, Course 3 9781609728915NIMAS 9781609728915
Carnegie Learning Algebra I, Student Assignments 9781609721541NIMAS 9781609721541
High School Math Solution, Integrated Math II, Skills Practice 9781934239964NIMAS 9781934239964
Carnegie Learning Math Series, Course 3, Volume 1 9781609725969NIMAS 9781609725969
High School Math Solution, Algebra I 9781934239803NIMAS 9781934239803
Middle School Math Solution, Course 1, Skills Practice 9781609728861NIMAS 9781609728861
Bridge to Algebra, Student Text 1932409432NIMAS 1932409432, 9781932409437
Carnegie Learning Integrated Math II, Volume 1 9781609726621NIMAS 9781609726621
High School Math Solution, Integrated Math III, Volume 1 9781609723286NIMAS 9781609723286
High School Math Solution, Algebra I 9781934239803NIMAS 9781934239803
Carnegie Learning Math Series, Course 2, Student Assignments 9781609721145NIMAS 9781609721145
Carnegie Learning Algebra I, Volume 2 9781609726393NIMAS 9781609726393
Carnegie Learning Math Series, Course 1, Student Assignments 9781609721138NIMAS 9781609721138
Carnegie Learning Integrated Math III, Volume 2 9781609726690NIMAS 9781609726690
Carnegie Learning Integrated Math III, Student Skills Practice 9781609722357NIMAS 9781609722357
Carnegie Learning Algebra II, Volume 2 9781609726515NIMAS 9781609726515
Carnegie Learning Math Series, Course 1, Volume 2 9781609725853NIMAS 9781609725853
Algebra I, Student Text 1932409602NIMAS 1932409602, 9781932409604
Carnegie Learning Math Series, Course 2, Student Skills Practice 9781609721367NIMAS 9781609721367
High School Math Solution, Integrated Math II, Volume 1 9781609724139NIMAS 9781609724139
Carnegie Learning Algebra I, Student Skills Practice 9781609721534NIMAS 9781609721534
Carnegie Learning Math Series, Course 1 (4th Edition) Student Text 9781684597260NIMAS 9781684597260
Carnegie Learning Math Series, Course 1 (4th Edition) Student Skills Practice 9781684597307NIMAS 978-1-68459-730-7
Carnegie Learning Math Series, Course 2 (4th Edition) Student Text 9781684597314NIMAS 9781684597314
Carnegie Learning Math Series, Course 2 (4th Edition) Student Skills Practice 9781684597352NIMAS 978-1-68459-735-2
Carnegie Learning Math Series, Course 3 (4th Edition) Student Text 9781684597369NIMAS 978-1-68459-736-9
Carnegie Learning Math Series, Course 3 (4th Edition) Student Skills Practice 9781684597406NIMAS 978-1-68459-740-6
Carnegie Learning Algebra 1 (4th Edition) Student Text Vol. 1: 9781684597420NIMAS Vol. 2: 9781684597437NIMAS Vol. 1: 978-1-68459-742-0 Vol. 2: 978-1-68459-743-7
Carnegie Learning Algebra 1 (4th Edition) Student Skills Practice 9781684597475NIMAS 978-1-68459-747-5
Carnegie Learning Geometry (4th Edition) Student Text Vol. 1: 9781684597499NIMAS Vol. 2: 9781684597505NIMAS Vol. 1: 978-1-68459-749-9 Vol. 2: 978-1-68459-750-5
Carnegie Learning Geometry (4th Edition) Student Skills Practice 9781684597543NIMAS 978-1-68459-754-3
Carnegie Learning Algebra 2 (4th Edition) Student Text Vol. 1: 9781684597567NIMAS Vol. 2: 9781684597574NIMAS Vol. 1: 978-1-68459-756-7 Vol. 2: 978-1-68459-757-4
Carnegie Learning Algebra 2 (4th Edition) Student Skills Practice 9781684597611NIMAS 978-1-68459-761-1

Carnegie Learning Integrated Math I (4th Edition) Student Text

Vol. 1:  9781684597635NIMAS Vol. 2:  9781684597642NIMAS Vol. 1: 978-1-68459-763-5 Vol. 2: 978-1-68459-764-2
Carnegie Learning Integrated Math I (4th Edition) Student Skills Practice 9781684597680NIMAS 978-1-68459-768-0
Carnegie Learning Integrated Math II (4th Edition) Student Text Vol. 1:  9781684597703NIMAS Vol. 2:  9781684597710NIMAS Vol. 1: 978-1-68459-770-3 Vol. 2: 978-1-68459-771-0
Carnegie Learning Integrated Math II (4th Edition) Student Skills Practice 9781684597758NIMAS 978-1-68459-775-8
Carnegie Learning Integrated Math III (4th Edition) Student Text Vol. 1:  9781684597772NIMAS Vol. 2:  9781684597789NIMAS Vol. 1: 978-1-68459-777-2 Vol. 2: 978-1-68459-778-9
Carnegie Learning Integrated Math III (4th Edition) Student Skills Practice 9781684597826NIMAS 978-1-68459-782-6