Educational Technology Tools
Embedded Files
UAA Core Tools are technology tools for teaching, learning, and productivity which are supported by the UAA Technical Support Center (786-4646), and can be used by all UAA faculty, staff, and students at no cost. See Faculty Success Learning Technologies and visit the Media Studio.
Blackboard Learn is UAA's Learning Management System
Blackboard Learn is UAA's Learning Management System
UAA is currently transitioning from Blackboard Original to Blackboard Ultra. Going forward, UAA courses will be set so instructors can choose Original or Ultra. The current plan is to have all courses in Blackboard Ultra in Fall 2026.
UAA Faculty Success: Blackboard Ultra transition
UAA Faculty Success: Blackboard Ultra transition
Summer 2025: To teach in Ultra for Summer 2025, register for one of our Blackboard Ultra Course Conversion training sessions. The training is required to teach in Ultra this summer, but will be optional beginning with Fall 2025 courses.
Fall 2025: When you enter your Fall 2025 courses in Blackboard for the first time, you'll see a pop-up prompting you to try the Ultra Course View. You do not need to decide right away! You can close the pop-up and come back to the decision later. If you’re unsure, don't add content to the course shell yet.
Decide which course view you want to use:
To keep teaching in Blackboard Original course view for Fall 2025, click “I’ll keep the Original Course View for now” on the pop-up. Watch this short, 1-minute video to see how to keep teaching in Original.
To try the Ultra course view for Fall 2025, click “Try the Ultra Course View” on the pop-up. It’s easy to switch back to Original from the Ultra Preview, but this is a chance to preview what it will look like. Watch this short video to see how to try the Ultra course view.
If you don’t see the prompt, make sure your course is unavailable to students, then click the pencil icon to reopen the pop-up to make your choice. You will need to make a choice before the course can be made available to students.
Tips for Blackboard Ultra Navigation
Tips for Blackboard Ultra Navigation
Finding Courses: See if you prefer list or grid view. Use search to find your most used courses and add a star to bring it to the top of the list making it easier to find next time. Lost a course? Click the dropdown next to “Filter” to see if you have hidden courses.
Adjusting Notifications: Either from your profile (name) or Activity Stream you can customize what notifications you receive by email, etc. Inform your students to set their notifications, too.
Institution Page: Includes announcements and quick links for Students and Faculty customized for UAA
Students have access to several tools which combine information from all their courses
Activity Stream allows students to see what's due and what needs their attention in their courses.
Calendar displays events and dates from multiple courses in one location. Be sure to enter dates in the official “due date” field in all Blackboard assessments.
Messages is an alternative to using email for communicating with class members. Students may see this option and communicate with you using this tool. In order to not miss messages from students, look for a "dot" next to messages when you first log into Blackboard, before you go into a course.
Grades page is populated with information from all courses that students are enrolled in. Students see a list of recent grades and their overall grade for each course. Instructors see a summary for each course.
UAA Blackboard Help Request
Submit a ticket with UAA IT by following these stepsUAA Blackboard Help Request
Go to the UAA Service Portal
Click the green button to Request Support or Service
Click Services by Category > Educational Technology > Learning Management System
Click the green button to Request Support and fill in the form
Student Engagement Tools
Student Engagement Tools
When looking for tools for student engagement, start with core UAA tools then expand to tools (like Padlet) that allow you to log in with your "edu" account via a Google or Microsoft login. Here are a few specific tools and ideas to engage students in your course.
Zoom Participant Engagement Features include polls and quizzes and whiteboards
Blackboard Ultra Knowledge Checks (ungraded)
Kaltura Quiz Example: Video Quiz in Kaltura and Guide to Video Quizzes in Kaltura
Log in with UA credentials for security!
Zoom
Zoom
Online Meetings at UAA
Online Meetings at UAA
At UA, the primary web conferencing meeting and teaching tool is Zoom. UAA faculty, staff, and students are provided Pro Zoom accounts.
Get Started with Zoom: Sign in to our web portal at alaska.zoom.us with your UA credentials to configure your Zoom Pro account, including Profile and Meeting Settings.
Zoom Workplace Tips
Zoom Workplace Tips
Sign into Zoom with SSO
Regularly download the newest version of Zoom.
Read about new Zoom features
Collaborate on documents during Zoom meetings
Record a Fancy Face Video in Zoom
Record a Fancy Face Video in Zoom
Zoom integration tool with Blackboard Ultra
Zoom integration tool with Blackboard Ultra
You cannot change the Bb Ultra menu, so I recommend that you add the Zoom tool at the top of your course content. Click the plus and choose Content Market. Scroll down to the Zoom Meetings tool. To schedule a new meeting, click the Zoom icon and schedule a new recurring meeting. Then go back and use the plus with the circle on the bottom right of the Zoom Meetings card to add it to the course content. Recorded Zoom sessions will automatically appear here.
You may want to add your class meeting days and times to the Course Schedule on the right side of the course below Question Banks. Click Add course schedule. Add the times the course meets with the plus. Fill in the blanks for nickname, dates, recurrence, etc. and paste the Zoom link in the location area and Save. Items added to the Course Schedule section will also appear in the Calendar.
I don’t recommend adding Zoom using Books & Tools in the Details & Actions section. (It will appear at the end of your course content.)
Kaltura Media
Kaltura Media
Kaltura is UAA’s media streaming solution. You can think of Kaltura as UAA’s YouTube-like platform. It makes storing, editing, and sharing videos (and audio files) to Blackboard easy. After logging in to Blackboard, click Tools to find Kaltura My Media. UAA faculty, staff, and students can use Kaltura.
UAA Mediaspace (home base and for sharing publicly)
VoiceThread
VoiceThread
VoiceThread is an asynchronous engagement tool for presentations and collaboration with your students. You can think of VoiceThread as a multimedia learning platform. It allows for video, audio, and text comments to slides and works well for interactive lectures, student presentations, and more. VoiceThread is integrated into Blackboard and can be connected to the Grade Center as an assignment.
VoiceThread Documentation and Blog and Workshops
VoiceThread Literature Review (June 2025) found that VoiceThread supports “authentic engagement, communication skill building, and community connection" making it more difficult for students to use AI to complete assignments.
Google
Google
The University of Alaska uses Google for basic office communication. Google Workspace includes many useful tools for productivity including Mail, Calendar, Drive, Docs, Sheets, Slides, Forms, Meet, Keep (Notes), YouTube and more.
Manage your files in the cloud and collaborate with others in Google: How to use Google Drive
Google Calendar Appointment Schedule instructions
Find more Microsoft training videos on LinkedIn Learning
Microsoft
Microsoft
UAA provides Microsoft products free for faculty, staff, and students. Microsoft Office 365 includes Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access, OneDrive, Teams, and more. You can install the full version of Microsoft Office on up to 5 computers at no cost.
Communicate with UAA colleagues via UAA Microsoft Teams
Level up your Microsoft Word skills
ScreenPal
ScreenPal
ScreenPal is a tool for making a video screencast (your voice and screen). The free version of ScreenPal is perfect for student use (log in with UAA email). Review the tutorials provided by ScreenPal.
Once you have recorded the screencast video and saved the MP4 file to your computer, I recommend uploading the file to your Kaltura Media account. Kaltura will add accurate captions, provide an accessible videop player, and make it easy to embed in Blackboard.
UAA pays for a pro version for faculty which allows videos longer than 15 minutes and more. Go to Faculty Success: Creating Videos for more information.
Foxit PDF Editor
Foxit PDF Editor
Foxit PDF Editor can be used to make PDF files more accessible (check/fix accessibility errors and convert scanned PDFs to text), export PDF files to MS Word for editing, combine a variety of files into one file, create fillable forms, and more.
Resources:
UAA Knowledge Base Foxit Installation Instructions
Surveys
Surveys
Qualtrics or Google Forms work great for collecting information from students, community partners, etc.
Resources:
eWolf ePortfolio
eWolf ePortfolio
An eWolf ePortfolio is a space where students, faculty or staff can collect and curate a collection of digital artifacts geared towards a particular purpose and audience. Learn more about eportfolios at UAA
Support videos (Paul and Jenna)
Tips for Selecting Technology Tools for Teaching
Tips for Selecting Technology Tools for Teaching
When selecting technology tools to facilitate learning, it is important to consider your learning outcomes, your students, support, costs, interaction, accessibility, privacy, and more. See the Teaching with Technology guide from Pivot for more information.
Choose technology tools that facilitate the learning process (KISS)
Choose a variety of types of tools (asynchronous/synchronous, text-based/multimedia) but keep the total number of tools to a minimum
Start with UAA Core tools; also work for consistency within your program/department
“If your course has needs for technologies beyond those that are institutionally-supported, it is incumbent upon you as the instructor to understand the privacy and data protections for students in addition to the accessibility level of the tool that will impact your students” Quality Matters Bridge to Quality
Provide students with clear instructions, opportunities for practice, help resources, and expectations for using technology
Provide students a choice of tools (Universal Design for Learning)
Rubric for eLearning Tool Evaluation has been designed for instructors and staff as a formative tool to evaluate eLearning tools in higher education (Educause)
Rubric for eLearning Tool Evaluation by Lauren M. Anstey & Gavan P.L. Watson, copyright 2018 Centre for Teaching and Learning, Western University is made available under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/Page updated
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