While digital representations and primarily visual learning materials can create barriers for screen readers and learners with other vision impairments, the ability to provide alt text for this type of dynamic learning material is often not feasible for many instructors due to time and capacity constraints. But there are a few additional practices you might consider that can help to improve accessibility for your learners.

We recommend using the university-supported tool Microsoft OneNote to capture handwritten materials. OneNote contains several accessibility features that can be used to make relatively immediate improvements.

• Narrate as you write to auto populate text transcripts for learners: To record your narration, there are a few tools within OneNote you can use: Dictate, Audio, or Transcribe (if working within the desktop app on a PC). Each of these tools allows you to record your lesson with your device’s microphone. The Dictate tool will auto populate text of your recordings directly on the page. The transcribe functionality allows you to record lengthier narration and generate a text transcript in a side panel. The Audio feature allows you to record lengthier sessions, but does require you to download and save the audio file to your device in order to generate a text transcript using an external tool, such as Microsoft Word’s web browser application or Mediasite

• Use the Math Assistant to quickly convert handwritten equations to text: The web browser version of OneNote provides access to a tool called Math Assistant. You can use this tool to quickly convert handwritten equations to text.  

To do so:

1. Click Draw from the main toolbar.
2. Select the Lasso Select tool.
3. Click within the notebook page and highlight any handwritten formulas you would like to convert.
4. With the Draw menu still open, click the Math Assistant tool. A preview of how the application is interpreting the written text will appear in a preview frame to the right of your screen.
5. Use the Fix it option just below the preview frame to make any necessary corrections and then click the Ink to Math link to finalize and convert your handwriting to text. 

We want to note that while this process gives an opportunity for working with accessibility features that support the generation of accessible equations, this is likely not the most practical or expedient option. We appreciate that speech to text does not always work well in technical disciplines and the conversion tool for handwriting to typed math do not always reliably produce usable conversions.