Welcome to the Fall 2024 semester! City Tech is welcoming even more new students and faculty members–so welcome to everyone new, and welcome back to everyone returning!
The OpenLab team is excited to work with you this semester as you do great things on the OpenLab–and to help you learn more about using the OpenLab and working in an open community.
Getting Started
As you develop your courses on the OpenLab, please do so with reading ease and accessibility in mind. The OpenLab has materials to help you make your work accessible.
As you include readings, images, and other media, please make sure to read our copyright guidelines and help on how to find reusable images online.
As you share readings, videos, or other course materials large files, we recommend storing large files in an external hosting service such as Dropbox, Office 365, or other hosting service provided by the college. You can provide your students with instructions on how to access this service on your OpenLab site.
Support
As the Fall 2024 semester begins, check out the OpenLab’s synchronous support:
- Open Hours: students, faculty, and staff can sign up for open hours, one-on-one appointments to ask specific questions or ask to learn more about topics ranging from getting started to using a tool to implementing pedagogical approach.
- Workshops: All are welcome for our calendar of workshops, plus any group can request a workshop on a topic or technique! Check the schedule for the full list of workshops. The next workshops are on Thursday, 9/5:
- Getting Started on the OpenLab: 9/5, 10:30-11:00am
- OpenLab Q&A: 9/5, 11:00-11:30am
- Co-working sessions: for quiet working time with others, with the option to move to a breakout room for conversation or questions. The next co-working session is on 8/29:
- Thursday, 8/29, 10:30-11:30am: open to all students, faculty, and staff
There are also great asynchronous options for support:
- The Help materials on the OpenLab guide members through creating and working in Courses, Projects, Clubs, and Portfolios, as do the the Teaching with the OpenLab and OpenLab for Students modules.
- Remember that even when you work in the open, there are privacy settings that can make you and everyone in your community comfortable. Look for “More visibility options” in a post’s or page’s settings to pinpoint who can see the published work–read more about this in the publishing section of the Help on Writing a Post. New settings allow members to choose who sees what in their member profile.
- One super useful bit of help for the start of the semester: step-by-step instructions for how to add students in bulk to your course by using a list of student emails. Being able to add students to courses this way is so convenient, we even spotlighted it!
- Everyone can get inspired by what this community has done on the OpenLab by looking through our past In the Spotlight posts or by navigating directly to what interests you through this helpful index of spotlights.
- And you can also contact us with questions: openlab@citytech.cuny.edu!
Wishing everyone an inspiring and healthy Fall 2024 semester. See you on the OpenLab!
Photo Credit: “Where Shall I Start” by David Camerer via Flickr under the license CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.
