The CUNY SPS OpenLab team is excited for the return of our Support Hours for the Spring 2026 semester! Whether you're a student exploring digital tools, a faculty member building your course site, or a staff member looking to enhance your online presence, our virtual drop-in sessions are here to support your journey on the OpenLab. We’re here to help. These informal, come-as-you-are sessions are designed to provide flexible, real-time support for all members of the CUNY SPS community. No appointment necessary—just bring your questions, ideas, or curiosity. Please register to receive a reminder email!
 
Monday, March 9, 6-7 PM Register Here 

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

• Tuesday, March 10, at 11:00am - Register Here

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

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

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.
45 mins.

• Wednesday, March 18 at 2:00pm - Register Here

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.

• Thursday, March 19 at 4:00pm - Register Here

The CUNY SPS OpenLab team is excited for the return of our Support Hours for the Spring 2026 semester! Whether you're a student exploring digital tools, a faculty member building your course site, or a staff member looking to enhance your online presence, our virtual drop-in sessions are here to support your journey on the OpenLab. We’re here to help. These informal, come-as-you-are sessions are designed to provide flexible, real-time support for all members of the CUNY SPS community. No appointment necessary—just bring your questions, ideas, or curiosity. Please register to receive a reminder email!
 
Thursday, March 19, 6-7 PM Register Here 

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!

Friday, March 20 at 10:00am - Register Here

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 @ 4:00pm - 5:00pm - Register Here

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

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.

• Tuesday, March 24 at 2:00pm - Register Here

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 25 at 10:00am - Register Here

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.

• Thursday, March 26 at 10:00am - Register Here

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.

• Thursday, March 26 at 4:00pm - Register Here

The CUNY SPS OpenLab team is excited for the return of our Support Hours for the Spring 2026 semester! Whether you're a student exploring digital tools, a faculty member building your course site, or a staff member looking to enhance your online presence, our virtual drop-in sessions are here to support your journey on the OpenLab. We’re here to help. These informal, come-as-you-are sessions are designed to provide flexible, real-time support for all members of the CUNY SPS community. No appointment necessary—just bring your questions, ideas, or curiosity. Please register to receive a reminder email!
 
Thursday, March 26, 6-7 PM Register Here