Dear Faculty,
As we make way into the Spring 2026 semester, we invite you to participate in our training sessions to help you learn about different technologies and new approaches to online pedagogy. Topics include Adobe Express for SPS faculty, quick refreshers on Navigating the Gradebook and Grading in Brightspace, and new topics to promote student engagement, such as using rubrics and Intelligent Agents in Brightspace. Those interested in exploring alternatives to text-only online discussions may wish to attend trainings on VoiceThread, social annotations in Perusall, and video notes in Brightspace.
Registration is now open for the Open for All Workshop: Using OER & Open Pedagogy to foster DEIA in online courses (March 6-31), and proposals are being accepted for the community discussion series that is part of this hybrid workshop. If you are curious about the topic, the workshop, and the community discussions, we are offering two infosessions: one Tuesday, February 24 at 10:00am, and another Thursday February 26 at 4:00pm. Join us for Open Spring 2026!
All of our training sessions are listed in Eastern Standard Time (ET). We look forward to working with you this semester!
Brightspace: Grading with Rubrics
In this training, we will discuss rubric basics in Brightspace. We will cover how to create a rubric, how to attach a rubric to an assignment and how to grade using a rubric.
- Tuesday, February 17, at 10:00am – Register Here
- Friday, February 27, at 12:00pm – Register Here
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.
- Tuesday, February 17, at 2:00pm – Register Here
- Wednesday, March 18, at 2:00pm – Register Here
- Thursday, April 30, at 1:00pm – Register Here
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.
- Wednesday, February 18, at 11:00am – Register Here
- Tuesday, March 24, at 2:00pm – Register Here
Brightspace: Intelligent Agents
In this training, we will discuss using automation tools to enhance learning engagement.
- Friday, February 20, at 10:00am – Register Here
- Friday, February 27, at 10:00am – Register Here
VoiceThread for SPS Faculty
This training will introduce VoiceThread, an asynchronous video discussion board. VoiceThread allows faculty and students to create multimedia presentations that engage a classroom community through threaded audio and video discussions. You and your students can add commentary to a presentation by means of microphone, webcam, keyboard, or phone. The ensuing conversation feels like a live classroom, but in an online environment.
- Monday, February 23, at 4:00pm – Register Here
- Thursday, March 26, at 10:00am – Register Here
Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility (DEIA) in the SPS Course Review Rubric
Join us for this infosession on the DEIA annotations to the SPS Course Review Rubric that are used in the Open for All Workshop. The SPS Course Review Rubric determines the standards and criteria for the creation, revision, and launch of all SPS courses. These annotations are suggested design and teaching practices that enhance students’ sense of belonging in the virtual space of your online classroom, beyond the basics of effective online course design. All are welcome!
- Tuesday, February 24, at 10:00am – Register Here
- Thursday February 26, at 4:00pm – Register Here
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.
- Wednesday March 4, at 12:00pm – Register Here
- Wednesday March 25, at 10:00am – Register Here
Brightspace: Navigating the Gradebook and Grading
In this training we will discuss how to navigate the gradebook and the options for grading in Brightspace.
- Thursday, March 5, at 4:00pm – Register Here
- Tuesday, March 10, at 11:00am – Register Here
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 and 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!
- Wednesday, March 11, at 10:00am – Register Here
- Friday, March 20, at 10:00am – Register Here
Introducing CUNY Pressbooks
Have you been hoping to adopt, adapt, or create OER for your courses? Do you wish that an OER you use were more inclusive, accessible, or customized for your students? Do you dream of having self-check questions or social annotation built into course readings? CUNY’s Pressbooks Network might be the right tool for you.
The CUNY Pressbooks Network is an elegant publishing platform that offers the opportunity to find, adapt, or create openly licensed course materials. With pedagogical features ranging from glossaries and built-in social annotations to interactive questions and LMS grading functionality, CUNY Pressbooks is a great option for presenting customized course readings. In this hands-on, one-hour training, we’ll preview some of these features, see them in action in resources just waiting to be adopted, and then dive in to get familiar with the platform and its robust tools.
- Tuesday, March 17, at 10:00am – Register Here
- Thursday, March 19, at 4:00pm – Register Here
Adobe Express Essentials: Quick, High‑Quality Graphics for Your Course and Beyond
Adobe Express is available to all SPS faculty, offering a powerful way to create polished graphics, banners, flyers, and other media. This one‑hour session introduces the essentials from access to the tool, to creating a graphic and finally publishing it. Participants will explore practical examples of classroom‑ready visuals and learn how to draw from Express’s rich library of images, templates, and AI‑generated art. We will also discuss ways to involve students, who have full access by default. The session concludes with guidance on publishing and exporting media for use in courses, collaboration with other users, and sharing to external platforms like Brightspace and OpenLab.
- Monday, March 23, at 4:00pm – Register Here
- Thursday April 23, at 10:00am – Register Here
The Pedagogy of Social Annotations/Using Perusall in Brightspace
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 the pedagogical benefits of social annotation across a range of disciplines and discuss how this practice can build students’ skills, foster community, and promote intellectual growth. In addition, we’ll look at how to use the Perusall LTI in Brightspace to build social annotation assignments in your courses.
- Tuesday, March 24, at 10:00am – Register Here
- Thursday, March 26, at 4:00pm – Register Here
Brightspace: Advanced Gradebook Topics
Setting Up the Gradebook: In this training, we will discuss setting up your gradebook for the semester, how to add items for extra credit, using grade schema for items requiring special circumstances, and more!
- Tuesday, April 14, at 11:00am – Register Here
- Thursday, April 23, at 4:00pm – Register Here
Brightspace: Finalizing your Gradebook
Review all the grading options that apply at the end of the semester when you are preparing final grades, and learn the steps for automatically transferring final grades from Brightspace to CUNYfirst.30 mins.
- Tuesday, May 12, at 11:00am – Register Here
- Thursday, May 21, at 4:00pm – Register Here
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
