Guide students to prepare for interviews, debates, or meetings with marketing clients, patients in healthcare settings, or other professionals in your discipline using artificial intelligence. The AI Conversation tool, built into your Blackboard course, enables students to work with AI in a controlled environment. You set the topic, you define the conversation persona, select Role Play and read a record of your students’ chat.
Bonus: Your persona may be instructed to speak in languages other than English, and you may give them location-specific backgrounds to support learning in world language courses.
At the end of their chat, students respond to a reflection question you design to help them apply critical thinking and ethics to their AI use.
Learn More at Blackboard.
Join the Blackboard Support Team to learn what is new in the Blackboard Learn Ultra Road Map for Spring-Fall 2025.
Let’s dive into Ultra and learn our way around the updated content design options. Use blocks to place media and text side-by-side. Or explore Knowledge Check features that can keep students engaged with course content. Facilitator: Jennifer Bland, Learning Experience Designer.
Looking for your Needs Grading list or how to drop the lowest quiz grade? In this session, we’ll get to know the Ultra Gradebook and where to find all the features you need. We’ll also explore a range of question analytics, plagiarism reports, and student support features for accommodations, extensions, and exemptions in the Ultra Gradebook. Facilitator: Celena Kusch, Executive Director, Academic Innovation & Faculty Support.
This presentation will look at the Blackboard Ultra features, like progress checking and activity reports, that allow faculty to easily monitor student engagement and performance in real-time. By regularly reviewing student course participation and performance and communicating with students about how they’re doing, instructors have a strong opportunity to foster student success and persistence. Facilitator: Lillian Reeves, Director of Transformative and Inclusive Pedagogy.
Take a break, and drop by CASB, Room 117, with your laptop for lunch, brainstorming and troubleshooting within your course.
Anthology, Blackboard’s parent company, has partnered with Microsoft Artificial Intelligence (AI) to develop easy-to-use tools enhanced by generative artificial intelligence and large language models. In this session, we will go over several key AI Design Assist tools and AI-based assignment options. Facilitator: Yamil Ernesto Ruiz, Director of Online Learning and Program Support
Share your question, ideas, and course design dreams. How can the USC Upstate Syllabus Template help you streamline your course setup and conversion to a new term? 
Let’s dive into Ultra and learn our way around the updated course view. Discover where to find key features and settings so you can start to feel comfortable in a new course format. We will also discuss how to create different types of assignments. Facilitator: Jennifer Bland, Learning Experience Designer.
What happens after you click Ultra Course View Preview? Take a step-by-step tour of converting your original course into an Ultra student experience. We’ll discuss strategies for achieving a consistent, sequential, logical, and accessible course structure as you go. Facilitator: Celena Kusch, Executive Director, Academic Innovation & Faculty Support.
In this session, we’ll think together about creating inclusive and welcoming Blackboard courses by exploring strategies that foster a sense of belonging for students, implementing accessible content, and using communications tools embedded in Blackboard. The goal is to ensure that all students feel supported and guided through their learning journey with Blackboard. 
