Teaching Tools & Technologies

Blackboard is a Learning Management System that facilitates an active and engaging online education experience. Blackboard LMS supports tools that deliver new and exciting digital learning experiences to students and educators.

Blackboard Ally works seamlessly with Blackboard Learn to gauge the accessibility of your content. Ally provides guidance and tips for lasting improvements to your content accessibility. In addition to providing you with insight to your content accessibility, Ally automatically creates alternative versions of your files. This allows students to choose the type of file they want that best suits their needs. While you're in the process of improving files, students can still access alternative copies.  

Blackboard Blogs allow students to expand upon their ideas in a format that encourages both personal expression and student interaction. Blogs are similar to journals, but also address the need to expand social learning. Created and managed by instructors, users can view and create entries and comments in blogs. You can use blogs for a graded assignment, or to gather information without assigning a grade. 

Blackboard Collaborate Ultra is an all-in-one online platform that uses conference tools to connect with students face to face. Collaborate supports audio, video, and recording capabilities.

Blackboard Discussion Boards - Online discussion boards provide a place for student interaction to continue after class, or to replicate the discussions that take place in the traditional classroom. The format promotes thoughtful conversation and helps to build a sense of community in online courses.

Blackboard Journals - provide a personal space for students to post their thoughts and ideas and to communicate privately with instructors. Journal assignments can range from opinions and self-reflection to more formal instructor-directed topics.

Blackboard Voicethread - is a web-based platform that enables instructors and students to upload images, video, or documents, and then record comments in audio, video, or text onto the same file. VoiceThreads can be private or shared, so users can invite others to participate and add their own commentaries.

Blackboard Wikis - Wikis (collections of information compiled by course members) provide a platform for students to share knowledge and collaborate. You can create one or more wikis for the entire class, as well as divide students into specific groups.

Clickers (TurningPoint) - An interactive polling solution, TurningPoint is the audience response system standard at UND. The use of clickers alongside lectures and presentations allows for instant feedback and evaluation of students and increases the level of communication between participants.

Digital Credentialing (Credly) - UND is excited to issue digital badges via Credly. Digital badges assist with promoting, tracking, and organizing achievements by capturing and communicating credentials (Hamson-Utley, 2016)

Digital Measures - Digital Measures is the system that UND faculty use to store professional development and academic information such as teaching, scholarship/research, and service. This data only needs to be entered once and is used for multiple reports, from CVs to the October Supplement.

Hoonuit (Atomic Learning) is software that empowers educators to make better decisions, transform teaching, and improve student outcomes.

JAWS - Job Access With Speech, is a popular screen reader, developed for computer users whose vision loss prevents them from seeing screen content or navigating with a mouse. JAWS provides speech and Braille output for the most popular computer applications on your PC

PowerPoint (adding audio) - Add audio to your presentations to enrich the online learning experience and replicate the traditional classroom lecture environment.

ProctorU is a live, online proctoring service available 24/7 that allows students to take exams from anywhere using a webcam and Internet connection.  Live proctors monitor exams by observing the student (via webcam) and his/her computer screen in real time.

Qualtrics - Qualtrics is a powerful online survey tool available to all faculty, staff and students at the University of North Dakota for academic purposes.

Read & Write Gold -Read & Write is an easy-to-use, intuitive toolbar add-on for PCs and Macs that supports students with reading, writing, studying, and research. Read&Write seamlessly integrates with Microsoft applications, PDFs, e-mail, the Internet, and other software.

Respondus - Respondus is a powerful tool for creating and managing exams that can be printed to paper or published directly to Blackboard. Exams are created offline in Windows and then the software provides many time-saving tools such as equation editors, web links, and multimedia functions.

SafeAssign - SafeAssign is effective as both a deterrent and an educational tool. Use SafeAssign to review assignment submissions for originality and create opportunities to help students identify how to properly attribute sources rather than paraphrase.

Skype for Business allows users to instant message, audio call, or video conference with instructors, classmates, club or other organization members

Smarthinking is an online tutoring service offering support in a wide range of subjects on-demand, whenever students need help.

Starfish is a tool that provides an efficient way to quickly offer coordinated support to all students ensuring they receive the right type of assistance or intervention to keep them on track.

Tegrity is a screen capture application that is integrated with Blackboard and is used to record presentations. Recordings are published online so they may be streamed or downloaded for viewing at a later time. Students can also record in Tegrity, which may be useful for assignments.

TurningPoint (Clickers) - An interactive polling solution, TurningPoint is the audience response system standard at UND. The use of clickers alongside lectures and presentation allows for instant feedback and evaluation of students and increases the level of communication between participants.

VoiceThread is a web-based platform that enables instructors and students to upload images, video, or documents, and then record audio, video, or text comments onto the same file. VoiceThreads can be private or shared, so users can invite others to participate and add their own commentaries.

Yuja allows instructors to record lectures for students to view any time and anywhere. Traditional students can easily review recordings, allowing for a more thorough understanding of the course material, and online students enjoy a more humanized learning experience.

Zoom is a cloud-based videoconferencing and collaboration platform. With Zoom you have the flexibility to create virtual classrooms and invite students to join from their desktop computers, laptops, tablets, and smartphones. Students can also share content from their devices such as PowerPoint presentations, and YouTube videos.