The countdown to Blackboard Ultra is ticking away—we're now less than 52 days from launch! In this issue, we'd like to introduce you to Mai Mohamed Nour, our newest eLearning team member available to help you with the transition; highlight some of our top resources to help you with Blackboard Learn Ultra; point out the upcoming training opportunities; and encourage you to register for the GVSU sponsored Michigan Blackboard User’s Group conference.
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Welcome Mai,
Instructional Technology Project Specialist!
For the last two years, Mai MohamedNour has worked as a Graduate Assistant in our eLearning Technologies department. Mai graduated with an Ed.S. (Educational Specialist in Leadership) from GVSU in December 2022, and we are excited to have her join our eLearning Technologies team to help support faculty and staff with Bb Ultra. Mai will be working closely with our Pew and Health campus team members providing faculty consultations and leading instruction during our Blackboard Ultra training, as well as developing resources to support Blackboard Ultra. Mai is located on the Pew campus in 272C DEV.
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Spring/Summer 2023 Blackboard Ultra Courses Now Available
As of March 13 2023, faculty listed in Banner as the instructor of record for the Spring and Summer semester now have access to their Blackboard Ultra courses. If you don't see your course, please contact your department coordinator.
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Before you begin building your Spring/Summer course site, we would like to highlight a few frequent requests that you can submit for assistance via our service portal.
- Merge Course Request. Use this request to combine two or more sites into one parent site.
- Course Restore Request. Use this to restore a course from Blackboard archives that is no longer available online in Blackboard. Please copy content into Template sites and not directly into term course sites.
- Adding a User Request. Use this to request a user be added as a teaching assistant, course builder, etc. Please note, all requests to add students must go through the Registrar’s Office.
- Course Copy Request. Use this to request copying content from one course site to another, or follow the Self Service Course Copy steps to copy your own content.
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Six Key Ultra Resources
Looking for some getting started information for Bb Learn Ultra? We’ve highlighted a few of our most frequently used tools and resources.
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Self-Paced Ultra Training
Once you are logged into Blackboard, filter your courses to the “Professional Development” category and look for a course titled, “Blackboard Learn Ultra Self-Paced Training”. The main goal of this training is to show faculty already experienced with Blackboard's Learn Classic how things have changed in the new version of Blackboard Learn Ultra.
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The training has been developed in five modules: Ultra Essentials, Building Content, Communications, Assessments, and Gradebook. You are welcome to review the modules in whichever order you prefer, and instructors are encouraged to use your Ultra Practice Test course found in the “sandbox” category while working through the self-paced training.
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Sample Ultra Course Tours
Looking for some ideas on how to organize your Blackboard Ultra course? Several of our Blackboard Ultra Champions have graciously shared sample Ultra tours. You can find their tours on our Blackboard Ultra Champions page.
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Upcoming Blackboard Ultra Training
Our eLearning Technologies Blackboard Ultra training comes in various formats to meet everyone's scheduling needs, so be sure to bookmark our eLearning Training/Webinars page.
Here's a snapshot of all our upcoming Blackboard Ultra professional development for the next few weeks, including the Sprout links for easy registration access.
- Blackboard Ultra Essentials are 60-minute overviews of the most commonly used tools and functionality in Blackboard Ultra.
- March 17, 2023 • 11:00am – 12:00pm
- March 29, 2023 • 11:00am – 12:00pm
- Blackboard Ultra Lunch-and-Learns are quick 20-minute sessions offered around the noon hour, with the remaining time available for Q&A's.
- March 20, 2023 • 12:00pm – 12:50pm
- March 22, 2023 • 12:00pm – 12:50pm
- March 28, 2023 • 12:00pm – 12:50pm
- March 30, 2023 • 12:00pm – 12:50pm
- Blackboard Ultra Course Build-a-thons provide a deeper 2–3 hour dive into getting your course converted and ready for Blackboard Ultra.
- March 24, 2023 • 9:00am – 12:00pm
- Five Steps for Course Design. In this month's session, assessment ideas for student engagement and components available in Ultra will be discussed.
- March 21, 2023 • 2:00pm – 3:00pm
- Ultra Base Navigation. Join us to learn about Ultra Base Navigation, its components, and how to adjust settings and notifications.
- March 27, 2023 • 12:00pm – 1:00pm
eLearning also schedules a variety of professional development on other GVSU-supported technology. The following workshops are scheduled over the next few weeks:
Introduction to Flip (formally Flipgrid) for Video-Based Discussions
March 17, 2023 • 10:00am – 11:00am
Workshop participants will have an opportunity to see Flip from the student perspective, review sample Flipgrids created by instructors to support online and in-seat courses, brainstorm additional ideas for using video-based discussion, and then create their own Flip account.
Hypothesis: Collaborative Annotation Tool for Blackboard Learn Ultra
March 28, 2023 • 10:00am – 11:00am
Join this informative session on how collaborative annotation with Hypothesis can be used to make student reading visible, active, and social. In addition to sharing pedagogical best practices for collaborative annotation, participants will see how Hypothesis can be used with course readings, JSTOR articles, GVSU Save/Vital-Source eBooks, and Groups in Blackboard.
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Save the Date: May 5 FREE Michigan Blackboard User's Group Conference
Grand Valley State University is pleased to be hosting the Spring 2023 conference for the Michigan Blackboard Users Group (miBUG). This year’s conference will focus on Blackboard Ultra, lessons learned, and best practices. Conference registration is FREE, but we need your registration for the catering order.
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When: Friday May 5, 2023 from 8am – 3pm
Where: DeVos Center, Loosemore Auditorium, Exhibit hall and adjoining classrooms
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The request for proposals closes March 17, 2023. Here's a sneak peek at some of the conference presentations:
- GVSU's Accreditation Dilemma: Creating A Cross-functional Framework for Data Gathering and Analysis
- Leveraging Ultra for a Learner Centered Course
- 5 Steps for Course Design with Ultra
- Lessons Learned from the Pioneer Trail
- Orienting Students to Blackboard Ultra!
- Week One Academy
- Hypothesis: Collaborative Annotation Tool for Blackboard Learn Ultra
- Roadmaps? Where we're going, we're gonna need roadmaps
- Accommodating the Accommodations: Utilizing Blackboard Ultra and Ally to Tailor the Learning Experience
- The Transition to Ultra: Things that Make You Go Hmmm
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Your eLearning liaisons: ready to help with the Ultra transition!
Don't forget… the eLearning Technologies team is spread out across the University's three campuses. You can request an in-person or virtual meeting by filling out this consultation request form. Each department has been assigned a Senior Instructional Designer and an Instructional Technology Project Specialist. To find out "who" your liaisons are, be sure to review our liaison website or use our liaison search tool.
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Sincerely,
Kim Kenward
Director of eLearning Technologies
GVSU Information Technology
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