City Tech has two different platforms to support your classroom instruction. You can use one, both, or parts of each as you choose. Just make sure your students know where to look for materials or assignments. All courses at City Tech are expected to have a site on OpenLab or Blackboard, should another pandemic or emergency arise.
Regardless of which platform(s) you choose to incorporate into your class, please be mindful of the principles of Universal Design for Learning. You can read more about UDL and other accessibility issues here.
Blackboard
Students are automatically enrolled into Blackboard course sites when they’re enrolled in your course, but your Blackboard site isn’t “live” until you make it so. This User Guide from CUNY offers some baseline instructions for how to access your Blackboard account and begin setting up your course materials there.
Whether you choose to use Blackboard to share course materials or assignments, you may find it useful for keeping your grading and attendance records, since the class roster is already in place there.
OpenLab
City Tech’s OpenLab is a custom-built open-source digital platform where students, faculty, and staff can meet to learn, work, and share their ideas. Its goals are to support teaching and learning, foster communication, connection, and collaboration, and strengthen the intellectual and social life of the college community. OpenLab enables students and faculty across the curriculum to experiment, innovate, and communicate with one another and the world beyond City Tech, while gaining expertise in the widely used WordPress software.
The Model Courses for First Year Writing all have cloneable Open Lab sites. This means there are Open Lab sites that are easy to use with these curricula which you can easily copy.
To use Open Lab, you and your students will need to set up OpenLab accounts using your City Tech email addresses. Set up your account and learn more about OpenLab here.
