Cinco de Mayo: Five great new capabilities in the latest Blackboard LMS release
The May Blackboard LMS release has been served, and this thing’s hotter than a Chilate de Pollo or Camarones a la Diabla. Here we’ll sample five of the spiciest new features, starting with an entree of AI, moving to a main course of student collaboration, and finishing—as we whet our appetites for Global Accessibility Awareness Day (GAAD)* later in the month—with a couple of inclusive capabilities for el postre.
*P.S., because we appreciate GAAD so much, we celebrate for the entire month of May!
1. AVA Playground:
Following the successful releases of AVA Feedback and AVA Responses, we’re delighted to announce that AVA Playground is now available in production. This allows instructors and students to develop vital AI literacy skills, all in a safe environment designed specifically for education.
AVA Playground offers a familiar chat-style interface, where users can interact with a range of AI models for ideation purposes. Questions related to the course title are suggested to help users get started, and conversations persist across sessions so they can continue to iterate and flesh out ideas. In line with our Trustworthy AI approach, safeguards around AI safety and Third-Party Provider Terms are included and users are constantly reminded to verify the accuracy of AI output.
The AI Playground allows instructors and students to explore and ideate new ideas and approaches to teaching and learning.
Administrators Please Note: As with all Blackboard LMS AI features, AVA Playground is off by default—you'll need to use admin settings to enable for your institution. AVA features are included in your Blackboard license until 30 June 2026. After that, an AVA license is required.
2. New Group Management Experience for Instructors
We’re completely overhauling the group management process, making it far easier for instructors to include collaborative tasks within their courses. The changes here are significant so we recommend reviewing the release notes for full details.
In brief, all parts of managing group activities are now more streamlined. Instructors have a range of options to assemble groups, including automatic enrollment, self-enrollment, and manual allocation, supported by enhanced controls to sort and organize groups once they’re established. Usability and consistency improvements have been made throughout the full experience.
Instructors can now sort group members by first or last name, student ID and sort groups by group name or number of members.
Administrators Please Note: The new Groups Management experience is controlled by an administrator‑managed feature toggle. The feature will be off by default until August production release, when the new experience will become the default setting.
3. Second due date for discussions, now visible in the gradebook
In addition, in the March release we added a second due date to discussions, allowing instructors to set tasks that require the student to participate on multiple occasions. This supports a much richer discussion experience, where tasks can be set to cover various subjects or themes that evolve over time.
The May release takes this to the next level, by adding visibility on the second discussion task to the gradebook. Instructors can now access both due dates in the Overview and Gradable Items views, making it far easier to track student submissions and keep on top of upcoming grading tasks.
4. Video Studio: Add Audio Descriptions for Inclusive Videos
You full on innovation yet? Well, we hope you can squeeze in a little dessert!
Global Accessibility Awareness Day (GAAD) on May 21st again places accessibility firmly in the spotlight, and we have two great additions to Blackboard LMS to complement a raft of new capabilities in Blackboard Ally.
The first is audio descriptions in Video Studio, making video content more accessible for students who are visually impaired or have low vision. Instructors can use familiar workflows within Video Studio to add audio descriptions at various timestamps within the video, then to review, edit, and ensure that the output is appropriate for all learner demographics.
Audio description editor showing timestamped description entries in Video Studio.
Administrators Please Note: This feature is included in Video Studio placements in Blackboard Core and Premium Video Studio offering.
5. Improved screen reader experience in Document view mode
Our second important accessibility update is to make the Document view more suitable for those using screen readers. We’ve removed unnecessary row and column announcements to make it easier to pass directly to the content, which is accessed in correct order, left to right, with a streamlined experience across rows, columns, and blocks. The editing view remains unchanged.
These are just five of the delicacies we’re serving up this Cinco de Mayo, so be sure to check out the release notes for the full menu. And remember, for those who like things extra picante, we’ve been saving our signature dishes for Building Blackboard Together this July so reserve your place today and we’ll see you in Dallas!