Welcome to the September 2025 edition of our eLearning newsletter! This month, we share essential tips and highlight professional development opportunities to support your teaching. From our Faculty Spotlight on Jennifer Tyler to fresh strategies for engaging students online, there's something for everyone. Explore how all instructors can access the Foundations of Online & Hybrid Teaching Skills course, connect with peers in the Online & Hybrid Faculty Learning Community, and discover practical tools like Blackboard grading tips and upcoming digital literacy events with FTLC. Plus, get a sneak peek at October releases for Blackboard and upcoming professional development offerings to keep your teaching fresh.
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Faculty Spotlight: Jennifer Tyler, Seidman College of Business
This month's faculty spotlight features Jennifer Tyler, who recently completed the Foundations of Online & Hybrid Teaching training and is now certified to teach online at GVSU. In this video, Jennifer shares how the Foundations course strengthened online and in-person teaching. Highlights included building confidence with video creation, using Blackboard tools like discussions, and exploring Panopto for interactive learning. Their biggest takeaway? The power of engagement and designing assignments and activities that connect students with their instructor, each other, and the course material.
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Did You Know That All Instructors Have Access to the Foundations of Online & Hybrid Teaching Skills Course?
Instructors are auto-enrolled in this self-paced course, which can be found under the professional development filter when you're logged into Blackboard. The Foundations of Online and Hybrid Course Development course provides a valuable opportunity to update your skills and revisit the application of quality standards in developing online and hybrid courses. Even in-person classes benefit from thoughtful course design, and our Foundations training provides strategies that are just as valuable in face-to-face settings as online. While the course allows you the flexibility to learn at your own pace, it's important to remember that you're not alone in this journey. Contact your eLearning liaisons or submit a ticket using the IT Service Portal if you want to earn the official GV certification, review the training requirements, or ask any questions.
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Discover, Share, and Grow in the Online & Hybrid Faculty Learning Community
Teaching online or in hybrid formats brings opportunities and challenges. Remember—you don't have to navigate them alone. Our Online & Hybrid Faculty Learning Community is an online space where faculty from across the university come together to share strategies, explore best practices, and support one another in teaching and learning.
Whether you're new to online teaching or a seasoned instructor, this community is for you. Each month, we'll connect via Zoom to discuss practical strategies, showcase examples from our colleagues, and discuss emerging technologies that can enrich the student experience. If you're looking for inspiration, a sounding board for your ideas, or simply a chance to connect with others passionate about teaching online and hybrid courses, we'd love for you to join us.
Our next meeting will be:
- Where: online via Zoom
- When: Thursday September 25, 2025 from 1 to 2pm
- What: Planning topics and dates for the rest of the semester
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Beyond the Discussion Board: Fresh Ways to Engage Students Online
While traditional online discussion boards can be a valuable way to engage students, they aren't the only option. Depending on your course goals, you may find that other tools create fresh opportunities for reflection, collaboration, and interaction. eLearning offers a variety of alternative technologies and approaches you can try:
- Use a private Blackboard journal for individual reflection.
- Try a virtual bulletin board like Padlet for resource sharing and audio/video contributions.
- Explore Hypothesis to support social annotation on a wide range of document types.
- Create knowledge checks as an ungraded way to gauge understanding.
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Partner Events with FTLC: Digital Literacy Fridays
We're excited to participate in a new series for the fall: Digital Literacy Fridays. This series is open to all staff and faculty and will revisit several popular topics from the Summer Digital Literacy Institute as well as introduce new sessions focused on emerging trends and tools in digital teaching and learning.
Sponsored by the Digital Literacy Initiative, Pew FTLC, and eLearning Technologies, these sessions feature faculty and staff experts who share approaches, provide hands-on learning, and facilitate lively, cross-disciplinary conversations. The sessions rotate between the Valley campus, City campus, and Zoom.
All sessions take place on Fridays from 11am to 12pm. Below you will find a list of the upcoming sessions scheduled for October and November. To see the complete schedule for the semester, visit the Digital Literacy Fridays website.
AI and Writing
Getting Started with Adobe Express: A Powerful Alternative to Canva
Beyond the Classroom: How the Digital Creator Lab Supports Your Students
Digital Approaches to Accessibility
Engaging Students with Social Annotation using Hypothesis
Assignments to Support Responsible Student Use of AI
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Essential Grading Tips for Using Blackboard
Many of you spend extra time in your Gradebook as the semester gets busier. To simplify grading, we've gathered some of our favorite tips and links to our Service Portal for quick guidance and ways to 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. See this resource on gradebook filtering.
Personalize your Grading with Audio or Video Feedback
Recording audio or video can personalize the feedback you give to students. Blackboard also provides auto-captioning to increase accessibility for students. Review this resource to help you add video or audio feedback to the Gradebook.
Check out these other most commonly used Gradebook functions:
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.
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October Blackboard Enhancements
Blackboard uses a continuous release cycle, meaning new features are released monthly. Some new features are significant updates with completely new functionality, while others are minor enhancements. We've highlighted a few features in the release that will be available starting October 3, 2025. You can find the full release notes here.
Ally PDF Remediation for Missing Title, Missing Language, and Scanned PDF Files
As part of Anthology's ongoing efforts to support faculty on their journey to improve the accessibility of course content while keeping them in complete control, three new quick fixes for PDF files are available as part of Ally's Instructor Feedback workflows. This robust new set of tools includes the ability to fix a missing title or language and/or OCR a scanned PDF, all directly from within Instructor Feedback. See this Knowledge Base article for assistance with your PDF issues.
Tag Questions with Metadata in Tests and Question Banks
In the October release, instructors can tag questions with metadata when creating or editing them in tests, forms, and banks. Each question can have multiple tags. This metadata is visible during question creation/editing and can be used to filter questions when reusing or adding to pools. Please note that metadata is not visible to students during test-taking or review. See this Knowledge Base article for more information.
Block Styling Options to Enhance Documents
Block styling for documents gives instructors new ways to enhance visual appeal and guide student attention. The styling options feature both color and icons. The style options include:
- Question
- Tip
- Key points
- Next steps
Instructors can select styling options from a dropdown menu in "edit mode" on all block types, which helps them create more engaging content.
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Need help making your content more attractive in Blackboard? Try out Suggested Document Layouts
This function is currently available in the AI Design Assistant and can help you design new document layouts that include images, knowledge checks, and helpful headings. When inside a document, select "edit document" to enter editing mode.
Then, select the AI Design Assistant Layout button. You control whether the AI Design Assistant includes images. You can use stock images from Unsplash or generate images. You can also select or deselect the option to include knowledge checks.
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October and November Webinars
Unless specified otherwise, these sessions are facilitated in a LIVE webinar format using Zoom. Registration for our webinars is conducted through Workday Learning. Departments can also request that webinar topics be customized and scheduled at their convenience. Send email requests to it@gvsu.edu with the requested topic, date/time, and format preferences (Zoom or in-person)
Blackboard and Accessibility Topics
10/6/25 • 11am – 12pm
*Anthology/Blackboard Sponsored
10/8/25 • 11am – 12pm
*Anthology/Blackboard Sponsored
10/01/25 • 11am – 12pm
10/29/25 • 11am – 12pm
*Anthology/Blackboard Sponsored
10/07/25 • 11am – 12pm
10/15/25 • 1pm – 2pm
10/14/25 • 1pm – 3pm • DCIH 260 (in-person)
*Anthology/Blackboard Sponsored
10/14/25 • 11am – 12pm
10/9./25 • 1pm – 1:30pm
10/23/25 • 1pm – 1:30pm
Video and Interactive Digital Media Topics
10/22/25 • 2pm – 3pm • DCIH 260 (in-person)
10/28/25 • 1pm – 2pm
Microsoft 365 Efficiencies Series
10/8/25 • 1pm – 2pm
10/1/25 • 1pm – 2pm
10/22/25 • 1pm – 2pm
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Connect with eLearning!
Working with eLearning has many benefits. We can assist in optimizing Blackboard course structure, enhancing online and hybrid learning experiences, and incorporating innovative tools to foster active learning. We encourage you to contact your eLearning Technologies liaisons or submit a consultation ticket at your convenience.
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Sincerely,
Kim Kenward, Director of eLearning Technologies
kenwardk@gvsu.edu
GVSU Information Technology
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