Friday Virtual Sessions | Nov. 6

In this interactive session, faculty will discover how to partner with Google Gemini as a personal web designer, turning standard text into visually polished, easy-to-read Blackboard course content. By drafting a custom, five-part prompt, faculty will generate clean HTML code for unique, accessible course content. Beyond simple copy-and-paste techniques, this workshop demystifies basic HTML so faculty can confidently make quick edits directly inside Blackboard’s content editor. Participants will gain practical skills in prompt writing while building a ready-to-use course asset, building confidence to use AI tools responsibly and model digital literacy for students.

A course scattered across a dozen shifting Google Docs is an accessibility problem before it’s an inconvenience — every extra click, inconsistent structure, and login wall is a barrier for students. This session shares a novel response: a self-contained, no-code course repository holding 241 curated resources across 13 chapters, built and maintained without institutional developer support. The innovation isn’t the resources themselves — it’s the model. Attendees see how UDL principles and a from-scratch build process (free tools, no admin privileges required) combine into a replicable, low-maintenance format any faculty member can adapt, regardless of technical background.

Facilitating group projects in online courses can often feel like a recipe for stress—for both students and instructors. However, when structured intentionally, collaborative projects foster rich peer interaction, promote deeper learning, and help prepare students for team-based workplaces. In this session, I will share lessons learned from facilitating online group projects, highlighting what worked, what failed, and how direct student feedback shaped my current approach. Attendees will gain practical strategies for setting expectations, managing team dynamics, and creating accountability. I will also demonstrate concrete ways to leverage Blackboard tools to streamline group administration.

Blackboard’s AI Conversation tool provides a low-risk environment for students to explore ideas, practice critical thinking, and engage in structured dialogue around a specific topic through Socratic questioning or role-playing. The experience includes both the AI Conversation and a student reflection afterward. This presentation introduces the tool and explores how intentional design can take AI Conversations further through multiple scenarios and scaffolding.

This presentation will explore how to make the asynchronous classroom more interactive and engaging through the use of recorded lectures with embedded quizzes in Panopto. Incorporating recorded lectures not only provides students with pertinent course material that they can review and rewatch as needed but also creates a greater sense of connection in the course since students hear directly from their professor, similarly to an in-person class. Panopto provides an embedded quiz tool that serves as a way to “chunk” the material and actively engage students in the listening process – eliminating passive listening to the lecture.

Instructors across ACC are integrating Goldi, an AI Career Coach from Climb Together, into their courses to build students’ communication and relationship-building skills—skills that translate into academic and career clarity. This session shares firsthand experience assigning Goldi Prep Chats: the opportunities they’ve opened, the rollout challenges, and early signs of impact on student engagement. Attendees will walk away with practical strategies for bringing Goldi into their own classrooms, along with an honest look at what worked and what didn’t. Ideal for instructors curious about AI’s role in teaching and learning.

Punitive AI surveillance damages trust and exacerbates grade anxiety. This interactive workshop offers a human-centered alternative: pairing labor-based contract grading with strategic AI productivity. Discover how alternative assessment helps address the panic driving AI misuse, while leveraging non-evaluative AI tools for prep work—like rubric drafting and assignment scaffolding—frees up vital energy for deep student mentorship. Leave with actionable strategies to replace policing with agency, mitigate faculty burnout, and build a compassionate, AI-resilient classroom ecosystem centered on authentic student growth.

Accessible design of digital course resources is critical for promoting student success in learning. It is also time intensive. In this session, Sandy and Meg will share tech tips and tools that can help you save time while still creating high-quality accessible resources for courses and websites. To get the most out of this session, participants should already be comfortable with the basics of accessible digital design including using alt text for images, formatting document headings with heading styles, and using accessibility checkers in common programs such as Word, PowerPoint, Google Docs, and Google Slides.