Math Keyboard

Do you need to create an equation or need your students to show their work using math? The math keyboard increases accessibility and functionality for teachers and students to communicate complex mathematical ideas digitally with greater ease and age-appropriate functionality.

What is the Math Keyboard?

For teachers, the Math Keyboard can be used when personalizing assignments to add custom equations into questions, directions, or other parts of an activity. Teachers will always have the complete keyboard available to them.

For students, the Math Keyboard is built into any math question that requires a written response. The keyboard allows students to write down equations and other mathematical formulas with an easy-to-use tool. The keyboard will be customized based on the level and needs of the course.

The keyboard contains multiple views with various commonly used math symbols.

Different Views for Different Audiences

The Math Keyboard will look different for students in different age groups and based on the needs of the course. For example, K-2 students will only see very basic math functions.

Older elementary students will have more tools at their disposal in order to show more difficult mathematical formulas.

Middle and high school students will have the most tools available to them to account for the more complex math curricula. Teachers also have access to all of the functions in the High School level keyboard.

How to Access the Math Keyboard

Teachers

Teachers can access the Math Keyboard by personalizing any math assignment. Once in a personalized version of an assignment, click on a text box to edit and select the Function button.

This will pop up a separate plugin box to click into and bring up the keyboard. Teachers can navigate between the different views by selecting the view above the keyboard. Once the mathematical formula is complete, click on the plugin again and click Save. This will insert the formula into the text box.

For Short Answer question types, teachers can also choose whether students enter their answers using the Math Keyboard by toggling the Function next to the answer box.

Student Keyboard Preview

Teachers can preview the Math Keyboard exactly as their students will see it. A "Preview as student" toggle in the Math Keyboard toolbar lets teachers switch to the grade-appropriate keyboard view that students will see when answering Short Answer questions. Toggling back to the authoring view gives teachers access to the full keyboard for creating content. To access the student preview mode, select the mortarboard hat symbol in the top right corner of the Math Keyboard.

Students

Students can access the Math Keyboard by clicking on a Written Response box in an assignment and clicking on the Function button. Short Answer questions that require a mathematical formula will automatically show the keyboard. From there, students can follow the same steps for creating a mathematical formula to enter into their answer.

Once submitted, teachers will be able to see the student's formula when grading the assignment.

Math Shortcuts and Undo Actions

The Math Keyboard has built in shortcuts for some mathematical functions, such as "and" and "or". The keyboard will automatically replace the text typed on a keyboard or using the virtual keyboard with the mathematical symbol. Students and teachers who do not wish to use the shortcut symbol can undo this change using their computer's Undo function (Ctrl+z or Cmd+z) or by pressing the Undo button provided at the top of the keyboard.

Additionally, a brief undo hint now appears below the math field for 3 seconds whenever a shortcut auto-converts text into a symbol, reminding users they can press Ctrl/Cmd+Z or click the hint directly to revert the change.

Note: keyboard shortcuts are only active for High School and Authoring keyboards — they are disabled for Grades K–8 to prevent unexpected symbol substitutions for younger students.

Text Mode

Editors and students can now switch to Text Mode in the Math Keyboard, making it easy to type plain text inside a math field. When Text Mode is enabled, typing produces upright (non-italic) text. These are useful for labels, descriptions, and mixed math/text answers. To activate Text Mode, select the T button on the keyboard. Toggling Text Mode off restores standard math input.

Responses using Text Mode will be highlighted in gray rather than italicized.