• Anyone working in a noisy environment can read captions.
• Non-native speakers can read captions to reinforce their understanding.
• Students learning to read can follow along with the speaker.
• Students can see the spelling of terms that will be on a test.

• PIVOT | Academic Continuity | Keep On Teaching | Student Technology Resources
• Check our extensive FAQ collection 
• What’s new in Ultra? | Known Issues 
• Open a ticket via RT
• Follow the Instructional Technology & DoIT myUMBC groups
• Request a consult with instructional technology staff

Today's talk is 10 ways to have a better conversation by Celeste Headlee. When your job hinges on how well you talk to people, you learn a lot about how to have conversations -- and that most of us don't converse very well. Celeste Headlee has worked as a radio host for decades, and she knows the ingredients of a great conversation: Honesty, brevity, clarity and a healthy amount of listening. In this insightful talk, she shares 10 useful rules for having better conversations. "Go out, talk to people, listen to people," she says. "And, most importantly, be prepared to be amazed."

• Review the Transition from Scantrons to Akindi Comparison Guide (uploaded below)
• Follow the Instructional Technology & DoIT myUMBC groups
• Check our extensive FAQ collection 
• Akindi FAQs
• PIVOT | Academic Continuity | Keep On Teaching | Student Technology Resources 
• Open a ticket via RT
• Request a consult with instructional technology staff

Today's talk is The power of believing that you can improve by Carol Dweck. Carol Dweck researches “growth mindset” — the idea that we can grow our brain's capacity to learn and to solve problems. In this talk, she describes two ways to think about a problem that’s slightly too hard for you to solve. Are you not smart enough to solve it … or have you just not solved it yet? A great introduction to this influential field.

Today's talk is In uncertain times, think like a mother by Yifat Susskind. There's a simple and powerful way to confront the world's most pressing crises, says women's rights activist Yifat Susskind: think like a mother. As she puts it: "When you think like a mother, you prioritize the needs of the many, not the whims of the few." Follow along as she shares moving stories of people around the world who embody this mindset -- and shows how it can also help you see beyond suffering and act to build a better world.

Additional functionality supports users with vision impairment to navigate through cards more efficiently and to move to the top of the page when there are enough students shown on the screen. 

Since its inception, the Ultra gradebook has only supported a letter grade schema for the overall grade that a student sees. In July, however, faculty will be able to choose between the letter grade schema and a percentage. This selection will appear to both students and instructors in the gradebook. 

Faculty who prefer to use a points-based system will continue to leverage the calculated column workflow to display a running total of points earned.

Moreover, faculty can decide to turn off the visibility of the attendance column for the Blackboard attendance tool in the gradebook, grid, and list view. This functionality allows instructors to choose whether or not they want to use Blackboard’s native attendance as a grade or not. While some instructors want or need to track attendance, they don't always need it represented in the gradebook. They can remove attendance columns from the gradebook without affecting the attendance itself. Note: The native Bb attendance tool setting does not impact Qwickly’s attendance total column as Qwickly is a separate third-party tool that must be set up and used separately.

The next update to our test environment will take place on July 6, 2021. Faculty who are interested in test driving new features before they are released to production should open an RT ticket to request early access. Please watch the FAQs and myUMBC for additional information about Ultra

Today's talk is The happy secret to better work by Shawn Anchor. We believe we should work hard in order to be happy, but could we be thinking about things backwards? In this fast-moving and very funny talk, psychologist Shawn Achor argues that, actually, happiness inspires us to be more productive.

Today's talk is What I've learned about parenting as a stay-at-home dad by Glen Henry. Glen Henry got his superpowers through fatherhood. After leaving behind a job he hated and a manager he didn't get along with, he went to work for an equally demanding boss: his kids. He shares how he went from thinking he knew it all about being a stay-at-home parent to realizing he knew nothing at all -- and how he's now documenting what he's learned.