Author: Celena Kusch

Providing timely and meaningful feedback to students is one of the most crucial and most time-consuming instructional activities. The Blackboard Learning Management System (LMS) offers the AI Virtual Assistant (AVA) to leverage its password-protected, closed GenAI environment to streamline and speed up the grading and feedback process. Instructors may use AVA to suggest feedback comments … Continue reading AI Spark Tips: AI Support for Feedback in Blackboard

Beginning in Fall 2025, USC Upstate is making available ChatGPT.Edu accounts for faculty, staff, and students. Along with Microsoft Copilot, ChatGPT.Edu is the University-provided Generative AI (GenAI) tool. Getting Started with ChatGPT.Edu Your ChatGPT.Edu account enables you to use single-sign-on with your USC Upstate email account and enjoy GenAI with a high level of privacy … Continue reading AI Spark Tips: Welcome to ChatGPT.Edu

Carol Denning-Broadus, Associate Instructor, has always used creative projects to engage her students with complex scientific concepts. In the past, her Introduction to Anthropology courses (ANTH U102) asked students to create analog board games to convey information about rites of passage in different cultures. Today, she uses Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) tools to enable students … Continue reading AI Spark Tips: Engaging Students’ Creativity with GenAI

New AI tools emerge every day. A recent Y Combinator podcast claims that 5 new Agentic AI companies will arise for every cloud-based application we use today. No conventional human could ever keep up. Today's tool encourages us to take a pause and reflect on how ready we are for the onslaught of opportunities we … Continue reading AI Spark Tips: How AI Ready Are You?

Within your Blackboard learning management system (LMS) platform, you can use AI to generate rubrics specifically matched to your assignment instructions and the learning outcomes of your course. As you create an assignment, just click Add Rubric, then generate Rubric to reach the AI rubric interface. Cut and paste assignment instructions, course outcomes, and even … Continue reading AI Spark Tips: Generating Grading Rubrics with AI

Google's NotebookLM can be an innovative partner as you design instructional materials. Upload up to 20 sources--including YouTube videos and audio files--then ask NotebookLM to create summaries, notes, assessment questions, and even an AI-generated podcast conversation based on the sources you select. It is important to be attentive to FERPA, data privacy, copyright and intellectual … Continue reading AI Spark Tips: NotebookLM for Multimedia Research