OFDIT Newsletter February 2025

Dear Faculty,

We have come a long way from one year ago, when we were inviting everyone to introductory Brightspace demo sessions and using the community’s feedback to create our brand new CUNY SPS navbar! With your ongoing input, we’re continuing to refine our SPS learning spaces and expand our professional learning opportunities to support you as you use them. In this month’s newsletter, you’ll find information about registering for our Open for All workshop and discussion series, dropping into one of SPS’s UDL Collaborative meetings, joining OpenLab Support Hour sessions, and signing up for one or more of OFDIT’s Spring Trainings on a variety of technical and pedagogical topics. We also share information about the second annual CUNY Teaching & Learning Conference (you can attend either in-person or virtually!), and dates of other CUNY Innovative Teaching Academy Events scheduled in the coming weeks. Looking forward to a great spring semester with you!

Brightspace Updates and Notes

Save as draft is here! This oft-requested feature allows users to create a thread and then save it as a draft. Note that only threads, and not replies to threads, can be saved as drafts.

To get back to a saved Draft, users can choose Filter by: Drafts within the Discussion Topic:

Edit or complete the post, and then Publish. See our Teaching Guide on Using the Save Drafts Feature.

Brightspace Highlight: Personalizing your Homepage

In response to your Brightspace Feedback Survey responses, we want to share several ways to personalize your “view” of Brightspace, either within a course or on your Brightspace homepage! Check out our Personalizing Your Homepage in Brightspace teaching guide to see how you can filter what displays in the My Courses widget, pin or unpin courses as needed, and collapse and expand widgets to customize your user experience.

Brightspace Office Hours

OFDIT’s open Brightspace office hours continue this semester! We look forward to seeing you in a drop-in session with your questions!

Brightspace Day

Mark your calendars! Thursday, May 15th is Brightspace Day! Has it been a year already? Yes! And the OFDIT Team is busy preparing a day of activities to deepen our knowledge and sharpen our skills in our LMS. CUNY SPS faculty and staff will once again be invited to both in-person and virtual sessions on Brightspace Day. You can expect some hands-on workshops, interactive demonstrations, and a showcase of best practices and strategies. Save the date for this opportunity to explore, learn, and ask us anything Brightspace!

SPS Trainings and Events

Open for All Workshop – Registration Extended!

The CUNY SPS OER Initiative is pleased to once again offer the Open for All Workshop & Discussion Series (Feb 28 – Mar 28). This hybrid online (sync/async) workshop covers the intersection of Open Education and Inclusive Pedagogy. Participants review a course using the SPS course review rubric annotated with open and inclusive educational practices and create a proposal for incorporating inclusive pedagogical approaches. Register by Monday, February 24th.

The wider SPS community is also invited to our workshop discussions on Fridays to join the conversation and contribute their own insights into inclusive teaching and learning at SPS. See Open for All Workshop & Discussion Series for all the details, including the workshop syllabus and registration information, and a community call for contributions to the workshop discussions.

UDL Collaborative at CUNY SPS

Join the UDL Collaborative community of practice and explore best practices of Universal Design in Learning (UDL). Attend an upcoming meeting with your questions about accessibility and inclusion, where we’ll be brainstorming solutions together. All faculty and staff are welcome!

OpenLab Support Hours

OpenLab is open for business! Join the OpenLab team this semester to learn about available tools and features, including building your own site, using our awesome single sign-on plugin, and joining the growing groups and conversations happening with other CUNY SPS community projects! Please bring your OpenLab questions and ideas for one-on-one support and collaboration. We’re looking forward to helping you bring your ideas to life!

CUNY Opportunities for SPS Faculty

CUNY Innovative Teaching Academy workshops

AI Session 4: Exploring Generative AI Visual Literacy and Creativity in Pedagogical Environments
Friday, February 21, 11 am-12 pm 

Participants will learn about where the datasets used to train AI image generators come from, how those sources impact what kind of images they create, how to recognize the biases and limits of AI image and text generators, and how to help students choose when and how to use (or not to use) AI tools in research, writing, and visual media. Register Here.

CUNY Online Webinars

Spark Discussions, Ignite Learning: Mastering Virtual Discussions
Thursday, March 6 , 3 – 4 pm

A guide to cultivating dynamic virtual discussions that transform your online courses into vibrant learning communities. See the calendar for more offerings in the CUNY Faculty Webinar Series for Online Instruction.

Credit for Prior Learning Showcase

CPL Showcase: Multi-Campus CPL Evaluation
Friday, March 14, 10 am–11 am

In this session, faculty will share their experiences working on multi-campus evaluation committees to make recommendations about CPL for industry credentials and other learning experiences. Learn about the evaluation process for determining curricular alignment and the benefits of engaging with faculty colleagues to explore the potential of CPL within a common discipline. Register Here. 

 CUNY SPS
Transformative Learning & Development Conference

Registration to attend the 2025 CUNY Teaching and Learning Conference to be held April 3rd (virtual) and April 4th (in person at the Graduate Center) is now open! Join the conversation about innovative pedagogical practices, with a keynote address by Christina Katopodis, author of The New College Classroom.  Register Here.

OFDIT Spring 2025 Trainings 

OFDIT’s spring trainings can help you learn more about how you can use Brightspace tools and features to support efficient, accessible course delivery and foster student engagement. We look forward to seeing you at some of our upcoming sessions! Refer to our trainings page on the SPS Faculty Community Hub site or use links below to register.

Using ePortfolio in your Course

In this session, you will explore the structure of ePortfolio and learn how to use the platform from the instructor view. You will learn how to navigate the Digication in Brightspace, review your students’ signature assignment submissions, and share the various support resources available for both students and instructors. There will also be time to answer any questions you might have about ePortfolios at CUNY SPS.

Anthology Ally: An Introduction

Learn how Anthology Ally can increase access and improve the overall learning experience in your course by providing choice and flexibility for how students consume content and access media. We will cover both alternative file formats, the accessibility gauge features that are now available to all in your courses, and the support Ally provides in addressing any areas where accessibility can be improved, often very quickly!

Brightspace: Navigating the Gradebook and Grading 

In this training we will discuss how to navigate the gradebook and the options for grading in Brightspace.

Brightspace: Feedback (30 mins)

There are many options in Brightspace for giving students feedback on their work. In this short brown-bag training, we’ll go over how to give feedback on discussions, assignments, quizzes, and group assignments and show you how students access your feedback so you can guide them through making the most of it.

Humanize Your Online Course with VoiceThread 

Creating engaging online courses is not easy. In many text discussion-board based courses, students feel isolated and disconnected from their instructors and classmates. VoiceThread bridges the gaps in social presence typically found in online courses. In this workshop, educators will learn how to establish a social presence and connect with their students using VoiceThread to improve course satisfaction and student learning. We will cover all of the basic VoiceThread features, demonstrate how everything works in D2L Brightspace, showcase a variety of examples from actual courses, and have an open Q&A throughout the training.

Brightspace: Managing Groups (30 mins)

In this training we will discuss how to set up groups, group discussions, and group assignments in Brightspace. 

Brightspace: Managing Dates and Visibility of Items (30 mins)

In this training we will discuss due dates, start and end dates, the calendar, and the date management tool and how the visibility toggle interacts with start and end dates.

Using Video in Brightspace (Panopto/Video Notes)

Creating video content for your course can be a little overwhelming with the number of options available.  Join this session to learn which tools work best for creating a reusable welcome message or lecture, a weekly update or one-time recordings, like giving feedback to students. In this session participants will be introduced to Panopto, the SPS video platform integrated into Brightspace, which streamlines video production.  Participants will learn how to access Panopto and its features through Brightspace, focusing on a workflow to create, organize, and publish video content.  The Brightspace platform itself has video tools too.  We’ll highlight when it’s beneficial to use one over the other.

The Pedagogy of Social Annotations

Social annotations can radically change the way your students engage with your course materials, each other, and you, combining the benefits of annotation, dialogue, accessibility, and digital accountability. In this one-hour workshop, we’ll look at social annotations across a range of disciplines, platforms, and assignment types, and discuss how this practice can build students’ skills, foster community, and promote intellectual growth.

Advanced Panopto for SPS Faculty

As many of us have learned, Panopto is a handy tool to create video in Brightspace. But many of us have yet to unlock the powerful features inside it.  In this session, participants will learn how to access the robust analytics showing us who watched a video and for how long.  They will see how faculty can leverage the power of a low-stakes quiz with the in-video quiz tool.  A video quiz can be automatically graded and mapped to your grade book. Finally, we’ll demonstrate how a regular assignment can be turned into a video assignment with students as the media creators.  It’s all part of the Panopto platform built into Brightspace.  

Brightspace: Notifications and the Pulse App (30 mins)

Brightspace Pulse is a mobile app that can help users stay connected with their courses in Brightspace through a quick view of announcements, grades, course calendars and content. Learn what Brightspace features are and are not available through the app, and how to enable and view Notifications to enhance the app’s functionality. 

Faculty Corner

Faculty corner image

Reordering Gradebook Items in Brightspace, Submitted by Curtis Izen (BUS):

After a few weeks into the term, I often find I’d like the columns of my Gradebook to be set up in a different order.  Turns out we can quickly move the columns around. Like most instructors, I use categories to organize assessments. To move items in the same category, follow the steps below:

  • Click the Manage Grades tab
  • Then click the “More Actions” button
  • Select Reorder

On the view that opens, use the drop down menu to select a number for the associated gradebook item. Select the numbers in the order you want the columns to appear in your Gradebook  Once you have the numbering in the desired order, click “Save” to complete the gradebook update. 

NOTE: Most CUNY SPS courses use categories to group assessment types or graded items. You’ll see the ability to reorder applies to items inside a category level, and you can also reorder the categories themselves.  

If you have a pedagogical tip from your new experiences in Brightspace (in 200 words or less!) that you think might help others, we would love to hear from you and add your submission to our next Faculty Newsletter! You can use our Faculty Corner Submission Form to submit.

As always, OFDIT is here to help! We are available for one-on-one support and are also happy to schedule a Zoom call to discuss any questions you may have. Don’t hesitate to reach out to us at facultysupport@sps.cuny.edu.

All the Best, 
Your OFDIT Team