In Part 4, we looked at the pages and posts that come with a course site. In this installment, we look at how to use these different types of communication and others to facilitate communication and engagement between instructors and students and among students.

Each course comes with built-in content to help instructors get started, whether you choose the template for a more interactive site or a more informational site. As you get your site ready for students to join, you’ll want to customize the content that’s there.

In this installment, we build on Part 1 and Part 2 to take on creating: creating sites, but also to creating communities, collaborations, and dialogue by joining other sites, connecting with friends and colleagues, participating in discussion forums, and more. That said, tasks involving building courses below are for instructors and focus on the first steps of course creation, taking a particularly close look at the course template.

As you explore the OpenLab, City Tech’s open-source digital platform where students, faculty, and staff can meet to learn, work, and share their ideas, the OpenLab Team is here to support you:

Get Inspired

Because so much of the work on the OpenLab is open, you can look around, get ideas, search for models, and find answers to your questions by seeing what colleagues have already done.

We hope that as this series introduces everyone to the OpenLab or helps reinvigorate our OpenLab work, it also highlights strategies for cultivating and growing this online community. Follow along as these posts are published or read them at your own pace.