As we continue to move toward switching from our current Blackboard courses to Blackboard Learn Ultra courses, we are rolling out the next phase of our instructor development and training. Although courses with student enrollments won’t see the new Blackboard Ultra course views until Fall 2021, we’re releasing the next phase of training to provide you with sufficient time to complete the training and work on designing quality, student-centered courses.

The next modules in the Blackboard Learn Ultra Instructor Orientation course will be available beginning on March 23. We will continue to introduce the new features in a scaffolded approach to help you transition to creating engaging courses in this new course environment.

Last fall you were invited to complete Modules 1–4. This spring, we will deliver four additional training modules (Modules 5–8) over a four-week span. As we announced last fall, faculty also have access to sandbox courses (empty course sites with no student enrollments) to explore the new features’ capabilities. More advanced training opportunities will be provided after the initial training time frame has passed.

For the upcoming modules, we estimate each weekly training suggestion will take between 1–2 hours to complete. Once the weekly module(s) are released, they will remain available. Details about each week’s training task will be provided in a weekly OnCampus post beginning March 23.

If you didn’t already complete modules 1-4 already, we recommend completing them prior to starting these new modules.

— Karly Good, ITS