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Hands-On Support Lab

Need some help? Want to ask questions about Blackboard? Head to our open labs! You can get answers with no appointment needed. 

Accessibility Fundamentals: Introduction to Digital Accessibility

Designed for educators and staff new to accessibility, this workshop builds a clear foundation for inclusive digital materials and environments.

We’ll cover models of disability, common disability categories, and how people interact with technology, then connect these ideas to common barriers in online materials.

You’ll leave with practical “quick wins,” a simple way to prioritize remediation, and confidence to start improving materials without trying to fix everything at once.

Accessibility Fundamentals: Documents

Ensuring documents are accessible allows all students to make full use of Blackboard Ally to download alternative formats. This workshop will guide you through the steps to create an accessible Microsoft Word document. This includes items such as document structure, headings, hyperlinks, and alternative text for images. We will also show you tools to check your current documents for accessibility in both Microsoft Word and Blackboard Ally, and how to make changes to improve their accessibility.

Accessibility Fundamentals: Creating Accessible Social Media Content with Canva

Creating accessible social media content begins with understanding the barriers that can prevent people from accessing and engaging with your message. In this session, you’ll learn practical strategies for improving the accessibility of Canva designs, including color contrast, typography, alternative text, and plain language. We’ll also discuss platform-agnostic best practices for sharing accessible content on the web. Participants are encouraged to bring an existing Canva design to work on during the session and will leave with a more accessible graphic ready to share.

Accessibility Fundamentals: Presentations

Ensuring presentation files are accessible allows all students to make full use of Blackboard Ally to download alternative formats. This workshop will guide you through the steps to create an accessible Microsoft PowerPoint presentation. We will also show you tools to check your current presentation files for accessibility using both Microsoft Word and Blackboard Ally, and show you how to improve their accessibility. Note that this workshop will not address making your live presentation more accessible.

Accessibility Fundamentals: Blackboard Accessibility with Ally

This training introduces faculty to practical methods for identifying, resolving, and prioritizing accessibility issues in their course materials using Blackboard Ally. It highlights common barriers for students, quick wins, and strategies for utilizing the Course Accessibility Report, empowering instructors to make steady, meaningful progress on accessibility without becoming overwhelmed.

Accessibility Fundamentals: PDFs

PDFs are widely used, but they can create significant barriers when they are scanned, poorly structured, or difficult to navigate with assistive technology. This practical session introduces the foundations of PDF accessibility, including how to evaluate the PDFs you use, address common issues, and decide when it makes more sense to revise the source document or share the content in another format.

Accessibility Fundamentals: Document Accessibility for Staff

Panorama DocHub is your new workspace for digital accessibility. It provides staff with a central, cloud-based space to upload documents and presentations, view their accessibility scores, and identify barriers that require attention. In this interactive session, you’ll practice using DocHub’s guided feedback workflow to address common accessibility issues.

Please bring a frequently accessed document or presentation to work on and leave with a more accessible version you can share with care.

Blackboard Ally Course Accessibility Report Training

This training introduces faculty to practical methods for identifying, resolving, and prioritizing accessibility issues in their course materials using Blackboard Ally. It highlights common barriers for students, quick wins, and strategies for utilizing the Course Accessibility Report, empowering instructors to make steady, meaningful progress on accessibility without becoming overwhelmed.

There are two versions of this training. One version requires deliverables and can count for PDH. 

Developing Your Course Environment 

Curating your course environment has different requirements depending on modality, but consistency is a common requirement across all of them. In this session, we will discuss the importance of establishing consistency in your course and preparing students for a successful course experience. We will also discuss strategies that you can implement in your course using Blackboard tools and functions. Bring your questions and ideas to discuss with your peers and the instructional designers in Learning Technologies!

Creating Instructor Presence

Creating instructor presence is an important part of developing any course. Specifically, for online and hybrid courses, instructors need to develop different strategies to demonstrate instructor presence. This session will cover the importance of instructor presence, how to create presence before and during the course, and different tools in Blackboard to assist with creating presence in your course.

Blackboard Ultra: Gradebook

Offers an overview of the Ultra Gradebook and how to set up your Gradebook to ensure that you and your students have a successful term.

Foundations of Online Teaching – Part 1

Essentials of course design
Geared towards beginning instructors and those new to online teaching, this five-week, online course is designed to promote instructor development and enhance instructor engagement whether you are teaching NET, Hybrid, or VCM courses. Participants explore techniques and best practices for online course development and instruction.

This course is highly participatory in nature, combining practical hands-on learning with engaged discussion.

This course runs as a NET style course, you will be required to complete independent activities due each week, develop a course module, and participate in weekly discussions to successfully complete this course.

Foundations of Online Teaching – Part 2

Applying the OSCQR Rubric

Geared towards instructors with completed courses, this five-week, hybrid course is designed to self-assess and build on courses, materials, and assessments that are already developed. Using the OSCQR Rubric, participants will evaluate and develop their entire course structure and revise/complete at least two units of work. This course will tackle more advanced topics regarding content development and assessment building. If you have taken Part 1 and wish to take Part 2 without a fully developed course, you can still participate.

This hybrid course is highly participatory in nature, combining practical hands-on learning with engaged discussion and meet twice on Zoom on Thursday at 6 p.m. of weeks 2 and 4.