In our March 2025 edition of Online Campus News You Can Use, we advise you of important tool updates, tasks, and upcoming events to help faculty deliver high quality online instruction.

 

The following new features and fixes will be available with our update to version 3900.112 by March 8, 2025. To prepare instruction, see our Semester Success Toolkit.

As a public institution, MATC must follow the US Americans with Disabilities Act, which requires all student-facing videos to have closed captions. As you may recall from our recent Faculty Professional Learning Day, faculty should review their Spring 2025 Blackboard sections for video content lacking closed captions. If videos do not have closed captions, either remove them from your Blackboard course shell or add closed captions to them by firm deadline March 20, 2025.  

 

For guidance and support in this task, see the resources in our FAQ.

 

Discover Blackboard Ultra's AI Design Assistant to simplify and streamline your course design. With these tools, you can generate images, test questions, rubrics, and more. See our video playlist to learn more about these tools and watch your email for training opportunities in March 2025.

 

At this time, Anthology does not support AI writing detection tools because research shows they often produce false results, particularly affecting English language learners and minorities. See Anthology's whitepaper AI, Academic Integrity, and Authentic Assessment: An Ethical Path Forward for Education.

Join educators from around the globe to learn about accessibility and strategies for course quality!

The accessibility of course materials has a direct impact on a student’s learning experience, sense of inclusion, and ultimate success. In collaboration with MATC's Center for Teaching Excellence, we are pleased to announce our Ally Workshop Schedule for Spring 2025. See the schedule for dates and registration links.

In these virtual and in-person sessions, you will learn how Ally benefits students, practice using Ally to address common file accessibility barriers, and explore Alternative File Download formats, such as speech-to-text MP3 audio, and text translation to over 71 languages.

In case you missed it, recordings of our recent YuJa training sessions are provided below.

Join our drop-in sessions to learn from our faculty experts about online teaching and Blackboard tools. See our schedule for March Dates! If you are new to using Blackboard, review our Ultra Semester Success ToolKit prior to attending a session.

The Center for Teaching Excellence provides one on one faculty Blackboard Ultra support. Contact your faculty development coach or cte@matc.edu. The Online Learning faculty liaisons are available by appointment to consult regarding high quality online instruction. For high-level troubleshooting of errors or activity that requires investigation, Contact the Online Campus. A Blackboard administrator will be in contact with you.

 

For self-directed or just-in-time training on Blackboard Ultra and other tools, see the following resources on the Ultra Faculty Support website:

 

Share our self-paced Online Readiness module and live orientation webinar schedule with your students to help them learn about the tools, tasks, and strategies to start their studies strong. If you share the Online Readiness module as a link in your course, use this specific URL: https://www.go2orientation.com/learn/course/matc-online-readiness?client=matc. This will take the student to an MATC login page where the student will log in with their MATC network account!

Online Campus

Milwaukee Area Technical College

onlinelearning@matc.edu