People with visual impairments are able to participate in video conferences. However, be aware of the following with regard to presentations.

Presentations

When giving a slide presentation during a video conference or when sharing a screen, be sure to describe images and diagrams and read any text aloud. Although students with visual impairments can have the slides open on their own laptop, they can’t listen to both you and the screen reader at the same time. Additionally, the cursor is not visible to blind individuals and can be difficult to see for visually impaired individuals. Set your cursor to the largest symbol possible and always say out loud which element on a slide you are focusing on. You can change the cursor symbol on your laptop under the mouse or cursor settings.

In conversation

Blind and visually impaired individuals can hear everything that is said, but they cannot always tell who is speaking. For this reason, it is important to moderate carefully and always call on speakers by name.

Chat

Avoid parallel use of chat and spoken conversation whenever possible. If important content was shared in the chat, download the chat at the end of the video conference and send the file to your visually impaired students.