Technology Enhanced Learning, AI Tools, and Online Course Design Workshops
The offerings on this page appear under two headings: Technology-Enhanced Learning and AI Tools for Educators, and Designing Online Learning. Together they cover the academic technology available to the BCM educator community, including generative AI.
Academic technology is a growing area of practice and of research. Technology-enhanced simulation outperforms traditional instruction across health professions education (Mitchell & Ivimey-Cook, 2023), and blended designs improve knowledge acquisition over non-blended methods (Vallée et al., 2020). The condition matters: substituting a digital tool for an existing method produces little change on its own, while gains appear when the technology supports the learning activity itself (Sailer et al., 2024). These sessions pair each tool with the instructional decisions that make it work.
Whether you are designing an eLearning module from scratch or considering how to bring academic technology into a course you already teach, these sessions are the place to start. The full workshop schedule is listed below.
Sessions are open to faculty, postdoctoral fellows, graduate research assistants and graduate teaching assistants, and any medical student or resident with an interest in teaching. Live sessions are one hour unless noted. Self-paced courses are open for registration all year and have no live dates.
Technology Enhanced Learning and AI Tools for Educators
Length of Time: 1 hour
Location: Hybrid
Description: You already have Copilot through your BCM account. This session shows what it can do and where it fits in your teaching, using demonstrations drawn from real coursework. Topics vary by offering. You will leave with a prompt set you can use the same day. Sign in with your BCM account, which keeps your prompts under institutional data protection. Offered in partnership with Information Technology Services and Academic Technology.
Facilitators: Nhan Nguyen, Senior Software Engineering and Programming Associate, Office of Information Technology; and Sherita Love, Ph.D., Center for Teaching and eLearning, Huffington Department of Education, Innovation and Technology
Dates and Registration
Length of Time: 1 hour
Location: Hybrid
Description: A one-hour overview of the AI tools built into Blackboard Ultra. You will identify the range of AI features for course design, recognize when each fits an instructional need, and practice the responsible-use habits that keep AI output accurate and high-quality. The foundation for the rest of the Bb Ultra AI series. A self-paced version of the course remains open all year. Offered in partnership with Information Technology Services and Academic Technology.
Facilitators: Jessica Klotman, MA, Senior Instructional Designer, Lead, Center for Teaching and eLearning, Huffington Department of Education, Innovation and Technology; and William McKinney, LMS Administrator, Educational Information Technology
Dates and Registration
Length of Time: 1 hour
Location: Hybrid
Description: A one-hour session on generating formative and summative assessments with Blackboard Ultra AI. You will match assessment types to purpose, produce draft items with AI, and refine them for alignment, rigor, and actionable feedback using targeted prompting. Offered in partnership with Information Technology Services and Academic Technology.
Facilitators: Jessica Klotman, MA, Senior Instructional Designer, Lead, Center for Teaching and eLearning, Huffington Department of Education, Innovation and Technology; and William McKinney, LMS Administrator, Educational Information Technology
Dates and Registration
Length of Time: 1 hour
Location: Hybrid
Description: A one-hour session on creating roleplay scenarios with Blackboard Ultra AI. You will generate scenarios aligned to your objectives, refine them for clinical accuracy and realistic context, and prompt for discipline-specific, experiential learning. Offered in partnership with Information Technology Services and Academic Technology.
Facilitators: Jessica Klotman, MA, Senior Instructional Designer, Lead, Center for Teaching and eLearning, Huffington Department of Education, Innovation and Technology; and William McKinney, LMS Administrator, Educational Information Technology
Dates and Registration
Length of Time: 1 hour
Location: Hybrid
Description: A one-hour session on using Blackboard Ultra AI to build Socratic questioning dialogues. You will generate conversation scenarios, refine them for scaffolding and cognitive challenge, and prompt for discipline-specific conversations that develop clinical reasoning. Offered in partnership with Information Technology Services and Academic Technology.
Facilitators: Jessica Klotman, MA, Senior Instructional Designer, Lead, Center for Teaching and eLearning, Huffington Department of Education, Innovation and Technology; and William McKinney, LMS Administrator, Educational Information Technology
Dates and Registration
Length of Time: Self-paced
Location: Online
Description: A self-paced module on using Blackboard Ultra AI to build course modules that hold to backward design. You will generate module content from your objectives, refine what the AI produces to keep objectives, assessments, and activities aligned, and practice prompting for discipline-specific material.
Length of Time: Self-paced
Location: Online
Description: A self-paced module on building rubrics with Blackboard Ultra AI. You will generate rubrics aligned to your assignments and objectives, refine the criteria and performance levels for clarity, and use prompting strategies that support fair, equitable grading.
Length of Time: 1 hour
Location: Hybrid
Description: A practical one-hour session on building teaching slides that help people learn. This is not a tour of features you already know. You will work on the decisions that determine whether a slide supports your teaching or competes with it: how much belongs on a single slide, how type and contrast hold up in a large room and on a laptop, and how to make slides accessible using the tools already built into PowerPoint. You will also see how presenter view and question slides keep a session interactive. Bring a deck you teach from and leave having rebuilt at least one slide. Listed in Blackboard as "PowerPoint for Teaching".
Facilitators: Jessica Klotman, MA, Senior Instructional Designer, Lead, and Brianna Hawkins, Multimedia Development Associate, Center for Teaching and eLearning, Huffington Department of Education, Innovation and Technology
Dates and Registration
Designing Online Learning
Length of Time: Four-week cohort, three live sessions of 60 to 90 minutes with build time between them
Location: Hybrid
Description: A four-week cohort studio for educators ready to build a complete eLearning module from the ground up. Combining live sessions with independent build time, you will move from project scoping through development to a finished, learner-ready module, with feedback from peers and CTeL instructors along the way. Offered each fall and spring.
Facilitators: Brianna Hawkins, Multimedia Development Associate, and Sherita Love, Ph.D., Center for Teaching and eLearning, Huffington Department of Education, Innovation and Technology
Pre-Work: Articulate 360 Rise + AI Tools, which opens two weeks before the first session.
Dates and Registration
Length of Time: 1 hour
Location: Hybrid
Description: A practical one-hour starter session on Articulate Rise 360, the tool CTeL uses to build responsive online courses. You will learn to navigate the platform, assemble a lesson from content blocks, and publish your work. No prior experience needed.
Facilitators: Jessica Klotman, MA, Senior Instructional Designer, Lead, Brianna Hawkins, Multimedia Development Associate, and Sherita Love, Ph.D., Center for Teaching and eLearning, Huffington Department of Education, Innovation and Technology. The lead facilitator varies by date
Pre-Work: Articulate 360 Rise + AI Tools, which opens two weeks before each session.
Dates and Registration
Length of Time: 1 hour
Location: Hybrid
Description: A one-hour session on the Blackboard Ultra Gradebook. You will learn its structure and features, enter and manage grades for graded activities, and use filters, grading workflows, and feedback tools to track progress and communicate performance. Offered in partnership with Information Technology Services and Academic Technology.
Facilitators: Jessica Klotman, MA, Senior Instructional Designer, Lead, Center for Teaching and eLearning, Huffington Department of Education, Innovation and Technology; and William McKinney, LMS Administrator, Educational Information Technology
Dates and Registration
Length of Time: 1 hour
Location: Hybrid
Description: A one-hour session on creating teaching videos with Blackboard Ultra Video Studio. You will record with screen capture and webcam, apply basic editing such as trimming and captions, add interactive features like embedded quizzes, and embed accessible video into your course. Offered in partnership with Information Technology Services and Academic Technology.
Facilitators: Jessica Klotman, MA, Senior Instructional Designer, Lead, Center for Teaching and eLearning, Huffington Department of Education, Innovation and Technology; and William McKinney, LMS Administrator, Educational Information Technology
Dates and Registration
Length of Time: Self-paced
Location: Online
Description: A short, self-paced orientation to Blackboard Ultra for new facilitators. You will learn to access an Ultra course and use its basic features so you can get up and running quickly.
Length of Time: Self-paced
Location: Online
Description: A self-paced course addressing the use of Microsoft Teams for instruction, including conducting a session, distributing materials, using breakout rooms for small group work, and recording a session for students unable to attend.
Length of Time: Self-paced
Location: Online
Description: A self-paced course addressing the production of short instructional videos in Clipchamp, including recording, editing, captioning and exporting a file for posting within a course.
Length of Time: Self-paced
Location: Online
Description: A self-paced introduction to instruction at a distance, addressing what changes when students are remote, what requires planning rather than improvisation, and how participation is distributed across sites. This course is offered through SuccessFactors.
2025-2026 Workshops
- ID: T1.2
- Length: 1 hour
- Click here to view schedule and register.
Facilitator
- Glenn Bridges
PowerPoint can enhance your presentations by providing a roadmap, reinforcing what you say, and allowing you to use graphics and other multimedia to clarify understanding and support different learning styles. When presenting scientific information, presenters must possess the skills to clearly convey information and learning objectives without overwhelming respondents. This workshop will explore effective layout/ formatting skills and tools that create dynamic and impactful slides, including audio, animations, and transitions.
By the end of this workshop, learners will be able to:
- Use professional design and layout templates to create engagement
- Reformat slides for effective message delivery
- Organize layers and understand effective layering techniques
- Create templates for future use
- Use PowerPoint Transitions
- Insert graphics, audio, diagrams, and charts in a presentation
- Apply best practices for using PowerPoint
- ID: T1.3
- Length: 2 hours
- Click here to view schedule and register.
- ID: T1.4
- Length: 2 hours
- Click here to view schedule and register.
Facilitator
- Jessica Klotman
Poll Everywhere is a tool that can be used to engage your learners in online and in-person instruction. Integrating Poll Everywhere in your instruction can enhance student participation, amplify classroom teaching, and allow you to assess student understanding.
By the end of this workshop, learners will be able to:
- Explain the meaning and purpose of audience response systems such as Poll Everywhere
- Understand theoretical perspectives informing the use of polls in online learning
- Identify engagement strategies using various Poll Everywhere question types
- Outline best practices for using polling techniques in distance education courses
- Experience Poll Everywhere from a user perspective
- Identify different question types in Poll Everywhere
- Learn how to create and setup an account
- Create a poll and embed it in a presentation
- Understand group/collaboration features for Poll Everywhere from an instructor standpoint
- ID: T1.5
- Length: 2 hours
- Click here to view schedule and register.
Facilitator
- Raffy Macapinlac
Are you looking for a way to efficiently assess learner understanding regardless of the teaching modality (hybrid, online, and/or face-to-face)? Do you give exams that will be graded by multiple professors? Blackboard tests may be option for you. In this hands-on workshop, you’ll explore how to use the Test feature in Blackboard to disseminate and manage your formative and summative assessments.
By the end of this workshop, learners will be able to:
- Identify formative and summative assessment strategies used in online education
- Create a test using different question formats and deploy/grade a test in Blackboard
- Apply recommended best practices for assessing student learning in Blackboard
- ID: T1.6
- Length: 1 hour
- Click here to view schedule and register.
Facilitator
- Glenn Bridges
PowerPoint can enhance your instruction by providing a roadmap, reinforcing what you say, and allowing you to use graphics and other multimedia to clarify understanding and support different learning styles. This workshop will explore effective layout and formatting skills and tools that can create dynamic and impactful slides, including audio, animation, and transitions.
By the end of this workshop, learners will be able to:
- Use design and layout templates to create engagement
- Format slides for effective message delivery
- Organize layers and understand effective layering techniques
- Use effective graphics, audio, diagrams, and charts to a presentation
- Use animation, embedded video, and other multi-media
- Apply best practices for using PowerPoint
- ID: T1.7
- Length: 1 hour
- Click here to view schedule and register.
Facilitator
- Raffy Macapinlac
Assessments are essential for gathering information on effectiveness of instruction, student understanding of the course materials, and achievement of learning objectives. Assessments provide feedback to students on their learning and are also an incentive to improve academic performance. In an online environment, many instructors struggle with providing reliable assessment opportunities and grading to accurately gauge student learning. In this workshop, participants will learn about formative and summative assessments, characteristics of effective learner assessments, and how to create online assessments/tests in Blackboard.
By the end of this workshop, learners will be able to:
- Identify high-quality formative and summative assessment strategies used in online education
- Create a test using different question formats and deploy/grade a test in Blackboard
- Apply recommended best practices for assessing student learning in Blackboard
- ID: T1.8
- Length: 1 hour
- Click here to view schedule and register.
Facilitator
- Raffy Macapinlac
Blackboard has a variety of communication tools including announcements, emails, and discussion boards. This workshop will give an overview of these different tools and different ways to implement them during a course for maximum effectiveness.
By the end of this workshop, learners will be able to:
- Differentiate between the different communication tools in Blackboard.
- Decide which communication tool is best suited for different scenarios.
- Apply best practices when using any of the blackboard communication tools.
- Length: 1 hour
- Click here to view schedule and register.
Facilitator
- Raffy Macapinlac
This workshop provides a hands-on, high-level overview of how to access and navigate a Blackboard course. This workshop will walk you through navigation and creation of various features within Blackboard.
By the end of this workshop, learners will be able to:
- Access a Blackboard course
- Use basic features within Blackboard
References
Mitchell, A. A., & Ivimey-Cook, E. R. (2023). Technology-enhanced simulation for healthcare professionals: A meta-analysis. Frontiers in Medicine, 10, 1149048. https://doi.org/10.3389/fmed.2023.1149048
Sailer, M., Maier, R., Berger, S., Kastorff, T., & Stegmann, K. (2024). Learning activities in technology-enhanced learning: A systematic review of meta-analyses and second-order meta-analysis in higher education. Learning and Individual Differences, 112, 102446. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lindif.2024.102446
Vallée, A., Blacher, J., Cariou, A., & Sorbets, E. (2020). Blended learning compared to traditional learning in medical education: Systematic review and meta-analysis. Journal of Medical Internet Research, 22(8), e16504. https://doi.org/10.2196/16504
Questions
Questions may be directed to teaching-elearning@bcm.edu.
Center for Teaching & eLearning, Huffington Department of Education, Innovation & Technology, BCM