Grand Valley State University
Welcome to this month's newsletter with resources and tips to support your teaching experience. We're excited to announce the return of email notifications for followed discussions, making it easier than ever to stay connected with critical discussion posts. You'll also find essential grading tips to help streamline your workflow in Blackboard and a reminder about Ally, a powerful tool for enhancing accessibility and fostering inclusive learning. Don't forget to check out our upcoming professional development opportunities to keep growing your skills and knowledge!
In this newsletter:

It's Back! Email Notifications for Followed Discussions!

Many of you requested email notifications for followed discussions, and we are happy to report that this functionality will be available with the October 4, 2024 release. Instructors and students sometimes need to pay special attention to one or more discussions or threads in a course, and users can now easily follow specific discussions to receive email updates on new contributions. One suggestion for using this would be to create a "FAQ" frequently asked questions" to track and quickly respond to class questions.
Note:  Instructors and students should also change their personal notification settings to select “Email me right away” and “Responses for followed discussions.”
Remember, Blackboard releases new features and functionality on the first Friday of each month. Many new features are based on feedback submitted to the Anthology Idea Exchange by members of the GV faculty and our GV eLearning team. We encourage all faculty to sign up for the Idea Exchange to contribute ideas and vote on suggestions offered by others.

Essential Grading Tips for Using Blackboard

We're at the point in the semester when many of you are spending hours in your Gradebook each week, and we've compiled some of our favorite grading tips with links to our Service Portal for additional assistance to help streamline your workflow.
Comment Library
Do you have comments that you use repeatedly in your feedback? This resource can help you create a comment library for grading.
Isolating Essay Questions for Faster Grading
If you are grading assessments with essay questions, use the "needs grading" filter to filter out automatically graded questions.
Filter your Gradebook to Find What You Need!
You can filter your gradebook view by user, group, item, and category variables. You can even use multiple filters!
  1. Click on Gradebook from the course menu.
  2. Click on the grid icon to enter the spreadsheet view.
  3. Select the filter icon on the right side of the gradebook.
Personalize your Grading with Audio or Video Feedback
You can personalize your feedback by recording your audio or video. Blackboard also provides auto-captioning to increase accessibility for students.
Review this resource to help you add video or audio feedback to the Gradebook.
Organizing your Gradebook, staying on top of submissions, and providing timely feedback are essential for helping students track their progress. Remember, your eLearning Liaison is always available for consultations regarding your Gradebook and grading tips. We also offer drop-in hours every Wednesday from 12pm – 12:30pm via Zoom. Join us at this meeting link.
Check out these other most commonly used Gradebook functions:

Enhancing Accessibility with Ally: Empowering Students and Instructors for Inclusive Learning

As an instructor, you may be using Ally in your Blackboard courses to check for accessible content, but for our students, it can be used to create alternative formats for your course content based on the original file. Imagine offering your students the freedom to listen to course readings on the go or study in their preferred language—all with Ally! The good news is that no extra work is needed. Ally automatically creates accessible formats so you can focus on your teaching! However, Ally is only helpful if students know and use it. To help you communicate with your students about using Ally's alternative formats, encourage them to look for the "A" icon with an arrow next to a Blackboard content item.
Try it out!
You can even try it out in your student "preview" mode. Choose the format you wish to download and click the download button. Check out the help page on alternative formats  to see what it looks like on Blackboard, or watch a short video tutorial.
Which format to use? Check out all the options.
In addition to converting content, Ally can help instructors create accessible content. Review our accessibility website to learn how to get started. Join us at our upcoming webinar, in which we will partner with the Student Accessibility Resources department, to learn how to make your course accessible and inclusive for everyone and how to set accommodations in Blackboard Ultra.
10/1/24 • 1pm – 2pm
Don't forget—you can always contact your eLearning liaisons to learn more about Ally.

Upcoming Professional Development

Registration for our professional development offerings is now conducted through Workday Learning instead of Sprout. The learning app is available in Workday, and our webinars can be easily viewed from our eLearning Webinars website.
After signing-up, Please allow up to 15 minutes to receive the Outlook calendar invitation, including the Zoom meeting link. Departments can also request that these webinar topics be customized and scheduled at their convenience. See our 2024 Fall Webinar flyer for more information.
We're excited to announce that Blackboard documents now offer enhanced design capabilities, including multiple columns and simplified media and graphics insertion, allowing you to create more visually appealing layouts. With the latest September update, you can add knowledge checks to engage your audience. We look forward to showing you how to make the most of these new course design features in this webinar!
9/27/24 • 1pm – 1:30pm
We've activated Blackboard's Rubric Design Assistant to streamline the process of creating rubrics for assessing student work. By inputting your grading criteria and instructions, the Design Assistant helps you save time while allowing you to review, edit, and customize rubrics to meet your needs. Join our webinar to learn how to get started with this valuable tool!
10/18/24 • 12pm – 1pm
11/14/24 • 12pm – 1pm
Holding every student accountable and identifying individuals who are falling behind is made easier in the Blackboard Learn Ultra experience. This seminar will focus on the data and analytics available throughout your Ultra Course and include an overview of Blackboard's Assessment and Accreditation solution, EAC Visual Data. During the session, we'll guide instructors through assignment analytics, student progress analytics, and course data that will allow you to measure and boost your students' performance.
10/10/24 • 1pm – 2pm
10/15/2024 • 1pm – 2pm
10/17/24 • 2:30pm – 3:00pm
10/2/24 • 1pm – 2pm

Connect with eLearning!

If there's any way we can more effectively help you this semester, please let us know. You can also contact your eLearning Technologies liaisons or submit a consultation ticket.
Sincerely,
Kim Kenward, Director of eLearning Technologies
kenwardk@gvsu.edu
GVSU Information Technology
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