Support materials to assist students with Blackboard Learn Ultra are now available on our webpages.
The Learning and Teaching Enhancement Unit have produced a Student Guide specifically for Ultra which can be downloaded.
Students were notified of the change to Blackboard before the end of last academic year.
As part of the move to Ultra our FAQs are in the process of being updated.
The Learning and Teaching Enhancement Unit is pleased to announce that Information Services has procured Blackboard Ally as part of our move to Blackboard Learn Ultra.
Blackboard Ally integrates into our Blackboard Learn Ultra environment and focuses on making digital content more accessible.
For colleagues creating content you will be able to amend the accessibility of your content. This means that your content will be more accessible to assistive technologies, such as screen readers.
Another benefit of Blackboard Ally is that content can be downloaded in multiple formats. This means that your lecture notes, PowerPoints, and other documents can be converted into many different formats, including:
There’s nothing that you need to do to enable Ally on your course. It will automatically be enabled on Monday 11 September on 2023-24 Courses onwards and Organisations.
For more information on using Blackboard Ally, take a look at our staff or student FAQ.
If you want to know further information about creating accessible learning materials, take a look at our resources.
Vevox, the University’s supported polling tool, has updated its PowerPoint Add-in.
From September 2023, colleagues making use of the Add-in should use the updated version.
Please see our FAQ for how to use the new PowerPoint Add-in.
In our recent blogpost, we wrote about the new AI question generator.
If Vevox is new to you then take a look at our support materials and our previous blogposts.
We’ve also got a training session taking place on Monday 18 September, 14:00-15:00. This session is run by colleagues from Vevox. Book your place online.
Vevox is a great way to make your teaching interactive and further student’s learning.
One of the benefits of moving to Blackboard Learn Ultra is the increased enhancements to the virtual learning environment.
In this blogpost, we will outline some of the new functionality available in this month’s update.
The location to manage the Groups feature has changed. You can now access this directly from the top menu of your course:
See groups guidance for additional information.
You can now add images to Learning Modules.
Learning Modules offer a way for you to organise your content. For further information, see Learning Modules guidance.
To ensure that your content is as accessible as possible, use the accessibility checker.
As you create your content, your accessibility score will be generated to alert you to any changes that you might want to make.
When it comes to grading tests, you can now grade by question or student in Ultra. See Blackboard’s test guidance and flex grading for further information.
For other updates this month, take a look at Blackboard’s Release notes.
If you’ve got any questions about using any of these features or Blackboard Learn Ultra, contact elearning@aber.ac.uk.
On 1 August Information Services roll their systems over to prepare for the next Academic Year (2023-24).
Blackboard Courses are now no different. On the 1 August, the term dates for 2023-24 become live.
This means that Courses 2023-24 are no longer listed as Private but are now available. It also means that they will not display in Upcoming Courses.
2023-24 Courses can now be accessed from the homepage. If you wish to only see your 2023-24 courses, use the toggle at the top or filter by courses.
You can favourite your course so that it appears at the top of the page by clicking on the star:
Students won’t come onto your course until they have completed their registration.
If you’ve got any questions about Ultra, please contact elearning@aber.ac.uk.
In the latest update to Vevox, our polling software, an AI Question Generator has been added. Colleagues can now create questions using the AI Question Generator.
Further information (including how to use it) is available on Vevox’s webpage.
As with all AI generated material, checking for accuracy and editing content is key before releasing it to students. See LTEU’s Generative AI support materials for further information.
There are also a number of blogposts focused on AI that you can take a look at.
There is another change coming to Vevox. The PowerPoint add in has been updated. We will be contacting all colleagues who make use of the PowerPoint add in via email before the start of September.
If Vevox is new to you, we’ve got a whole host of support materials on our Vevox webpage.
The Learning and Teaching Enhancement Unit has now completed their cycle of departmental training sessions for E-learning Essentials: Introduction to Blackboard Ultra.
This training session was designed to ensure that staff had the opportunity to familiarise themselves with Blackboard Ultra and achieve the Blackboard Required Minimum Presence.
Since May, we have trained over 300 members of staff in both in person and online sessions.
For those of you at the first day of the conference you will have seen the exciting features that are coming to Blackboard Ultra over the next few years.
If you haven’t managed to attend one of your departmental sessions or would like a refresher, then we are running the sessions in English and Welsh online.
You can book onto our training sessions and view other sessions on the booking page.
If you have any questins about Ultra then email elearning@aber.ac.uk
Between the 4 and 6 July, the Learning and Teaching Enhancement Unit hosted the 11th Annual Learning and Teaching Conference.
The materials from the conference are now available on our webpages.
We would like to thank all of our contributors and attendees. The sessions were of such high quality.
Across two in person days and one online day, delegates heard about the developments for Blackboard Learn Ultra, Chat GPT and AI, and creative approaches to assessment design.
We’re already heading into planning our 12th Annual Learning and Teaching Conference which is scheduled to take place in September 2024 (date TBC).
We hope to see you at a forthcoming event.
The big news since our last update on the Blackboard Ultra project is that we have started departmental training sessions. It’s been great getting to meet staff and demonstrate the basics of using Ultra. To date 200 people have attended a session, and we’ve got more sessions lined up over the summer.
If you’re not able to attend your departmental training session, then we’ve got a number of centrally organised ones for you to join.
In addition to this, and to make sure that colleagues have access to full Ultra functionality, we’ve got the following sessions scheduled (available in Welsh and English):
You can view our sessions and book your place on the course booking page.
We’re also working behind the scenes on our integrations with other tools. At the moment, we are working on making it easier for you to find the correct academic year Panopto folder when you create recordings. We think that this is going to make things much easier when teaching starts again. Keep an eye out for news on this.
We’re looking forward to welcoming colleagues from Anthology / Blackboard and Bangor University to the annual learning and teaching conference. We’ve got a whole day of Ultra-related events on 4th July. If you haven’t booked your place at the conference, you can do it on our conference webpages.
If you’ve got any questions about Ultra, contact the Learning and Teaching Enhancement Unit (elearning@aber.ac.uk).
To complement the keynote sessions from Blackboard, we’re delighted to welcome colleagues from Bangor University: Bethan Wyn Jones and Alan Thomas.
View our full programme and book your place online.
One thing that we were keen on having as part of the conference is to hear about colleagues’ experience of moving over to Blackboard Ultra. Bangor have been using Ultra since 2020.
Please see below for their biographies: