Recording Archives

Ultra Essentials 

• Introduction to Blackboard Ultra (January 2024) | view recording

Are you new to Blackboard Ultra? Join this 60 minute session to review Ultra navigation, key features for building content, assessments, grading, and communicating with students. This session is ideal for instructors who are adopting Ultra in an upcoming term.

• Ultra Essentials I: Planning Your Ultra Course Roadmap | view recording

This webinar focuses on planning your course roadmap for Ultra. Topics include terminology and tools in Ultra courses; options for switching to Ultra including converting, copying, or constructing; converting a course from the Original Course View to the Ultra Course View; copying content from either an Original course or another Ultra course; and deciding on a strategy that fits your course or schedule.

• Ultra Essentials II: Course Content & Organization (December 2023) | view recording

This webinar focuses on the essentials of using Ultra for content creation in your course. Topics include creating folders and learning modules; creating documents with embedded files, links, tools, and external media; applying descriptive information; uploading files and linking to Google resources; and controlling the release of content.

• Ultra Essentials III: Engagement & Communication Tools (Jan 2023) | view recording

This webinar focuses on the essentials of using Ultra for communication and engagement in your course. Topics include facilitating communicating using course messages and announcements; creating and replying to discussions or conversations; creating and managing groups; using the course calendar; updating personal notifications and name pronunciation settings; and accessing web conferencing tools.

• Ultra Essentials IV: Assessments, Tests & Assignments (January 2024) | view recording

This webinar focuses on the essentials of using Ultra for tests and assignments. Topics include creating individual or group assessments (test or assignment); importing question banks and creating question pools; enabling and checking SafeAssign for plagiarism; setting exceptions for due date, availability, and attempts; creating an offline assessment; and identifying test proctoring options.

• Ultra Essentials V: Grading & the Ultra Gradebook (January 2024) | view recording

This webinar focuses on the essentials of using Ultra for grading. Topics include creating rubrics using points or percentage; copying rubrics from other courses; accessing student work to grade; grading work with a rubric or embedding feedback; creating an overall grade for the course using a weighted total, points, or advanced formula; tracking student performance using embedded analytics; and reviewing student progress using available reporting tools.

Track Student Progress & Elevate Learner Outreach (February 2024) | view recording

The success of students in a Blackboard course is often dependent on their level of engagement and their ability to stay on track with course content and assignments. As an instructor, it’s crucial to have the tools and resources to monitor students’ progress and ensure they are staying engaged and motivated throughout the course. Join Instructional Technology in this 45-minute webinar to review the available Blackboard Ultra progress tracking tools that support progress tracking and communication with students.

What’s New in Ultra Courses for Teaching & Learning (Winter 2024) | view recording

Learn what’s new in grading, engagement, and content creation in Ultra courses for FA2022, including recent spring/summer updates, how Ultra aligns to Original’s features, and what’s in development for Ultra courses.

AI Course Design Tools for Blackboard Ultra Courses (December 2023) | view recording

Discover how instructors can leverage integrated AI tools to create engaging learning experiences in your Ultra courses. Instructional Technology staff invites faculty to preview a suite of new AI Course Design Assistant features, exclusively for Ultra courses, designed to inspire and assist faculty in streamlining the course development process.

Embed & Collaborate in Blackboard Ultra with Office 365 & Google Files (January 2024) | view recording

Blackboard tools allow faculty to seamlessly embed cloud files from Google Workspace and/or Microsoft OneDrive. Additionally, instructors can create collaborative Google or Microsoft documents, spreadsheets, and presentations to support student learning, allowing multiple users to edit a document for a team project or work on a shared presentation.

Blackboard Original Essentials (May 2020) | view recording part 1 (content & communication) or recording part 2 (assessment & grading)

New to Blackboard or need a refresher? This 2-part hands-on overview focuses on the essentials of using the Original Blackboard course interface.

Webex and Collaborate (August 2022) | view recording

This workshop focuses on core components of Blackboard Collaborate and Webex. This session is intended for novice users of the learning management system (LMS) who need to learn how to use core components & supporting technologies, or for users who want to refresh skills.

Collaborate Essentials (August 2021) | view recording

This workshop prepares faculty to use Collaborate for synchronous classroom settings. By the end of the virtual workshop, faculty should be able to identify the content sharing tools, record a session, create breakout rooms and polls, and examine active learning strategies to get participants involved in the sessions.

CourseArc Essentials (August 2021) | view recording

CourseArc is a digital content creation tool that encourages the design of interactive, accessible, and engaging online content. CourseArc is available to UMBC faculty for the ability to integrate captivating course content into Blackboard. This recording provides a brief introduction to get started with CourseArc.

Using Google Apps (August 2021):

Faculty & staff can view the August 2021 Hybrid Workplace webinar recordings on using Google apps. Login via myUMBC.

Grading & Providing Feedback with Google Assignments (April 2020) | view recording

Deploy assignments, create rubrics, re-use comments on student submissions, suggest edits through track changes, and enable a Google originality checker from Google Assignments. Learn how to leverage your unlimited Google Drive storage, and use the Google Drive File Embed tool to link to a native Google Suite file from your drive directly into your Blackboard course, providing students with view-only access to the file.

Class Collaboration with OneNote Class Notebook (May 2020) | view recording

OneNote Class Notebook allows instructors to create a shareable notebook with students enrolled in their Blackboard course. This tool is helpful for instructors that find using traditional word processors for their coursework challenging, like in mathematics or languages. Learn how to create a Class Notebook through Blackboard, distribute content, create an assignment, and review student work; and determine use cases to apply the OneNote Class Notebook in their courses.

Panopto Essentials (January 2024) | view recording

Sometimes it’s just easier to show than tell. Using Panopto, faculty can capture and narrate anything they see on their computers, and then publish an online screencast movie tutorial or mini-lecture for students to watch and replay on their own time. This hands-on Panopto Essentials workshop focuses on an introduction to screencasting. 

Panopto Advanced: Editing & Quizzing (August 2022) | view recording

This recording focuses on advanced Panopto editing skills, such as embedding external content within a video, and leveraging the quizzing features within Blackboard Classic and Ultra course to allow for automatic grading.

Access for All: A Course Accessibility Workshop (January 2024) | view recording

Join Instructional Technology for an Accessibility Workshop to review Universal Design for Learning (UDL) principles, explore key technology resources to support all learners, and create an action plan to support accessibility in your courses.

5 Things You Didn’t Know About Blackboard Ally (2023) | view recording

This workshop will offer ideas for developing a strategy to improve your course usability and accessibility and how to get started with Blackboard Ally. Available in both Original and Ultra courses, Ally scans content in Blackboard and provides feedback and tools to identify and fix accessibility issues. Leverage Ally’s powerful alternative format options yourself, and let students know they can download content in multiple formats that give them choices in how they watch, read, or listen.

Universal Design for Learning Best Practices (January 2022) | view recording

VoiceThread Essentials (Spring 2021) | view recording

VoiceThread is a learning tool for enhancing student engagement and online presence. Participants will learn how to upload media, comment and annotate on that media, and share it with others; create VoiceThread assignments in Blackboard; use comment moderation to formatively assess student work, give private feedback, and use threaded commenting; and edit automated captions for accessibility.

It’s Week 1: Do You Know Where Your Online Learners Are? (Fall 2023) | view recording

It’s week one of the semester and following your daily log-in to Blackboard, you notice that several students have yet to log in, access the syllabus, view the welcome video, or post an introduction. You have not received an email or message from these students asking for technical support or clarification. Now what? You likely will send an email to the missing students, reminding them what needs to be accomplished this week and encouraging them to respond. But have you considered how Blackboard’s student tracking tools could support your ability to monitor students’ progress, receive alerts if they fall behind, and efficiently schedule outreach?

Grounded in evidence-based practice research, peer review, and collegiality, Quality Matters (QM) is used by more than 40,000 educators and instructional designers worldwide to strengthen online and blended course design. In particular, QM’s General Standard 1: Course Overview & Introduction, offers researched-backed effective practices for orienting students to the course and your expectations for communication, grading, feedback, and use of Blackboard.

QM Standard 1: Orientating Your Online Learners (Fall 2022) | view recording

Did you know the Blackboard Ultra course shell has been designed to help all courses meet QM General Standard 1: Course Overview & Introduction? Whether or not you are familiar with Quality Matters or the rubric, please join us for this interactive workshop where participants will be able to recall QM General Standard 1 as it relates to orienting online learners to your course and identify best practices for getting started in Blackboard

S2E1 GO Chat: Quality Matters (QM) Impact Success Stories (February 2022) | view recording

Celebrate two faculty, Mary Tabaa and Louise Murray, who’ve recently participated in Instructional Technology’s Quality Matters Impact (QMI) Program, a new initiative to formally recognize courses that meet Quality Matters standards and demonstrate exemplary online/hybrid course design.

S2E2 GO Chat: Quality Matters (QM) Impact Success Stories (April 2022) | view recording

Celebrate two faculty, Sarah Bass and Katie Birger, who’ve recently participated in Instructional Technology’s Quality Matters Impact (QMI) Program, a new initiative to formally recognize courses that meet Quality Matters standards and demonstrate exemplary online/hybrid course design.