Technology Tools

Faculty and staff can request their own license for Adobe Creative Cloud (includes Acrobat, Photoshop, Illustrator, Premiere Pro, etc.) by emailing Hunter College’s Site License Coordinator, Noeli Rosario-Sanchez, at nrosa@hunter.cuny.edu.

If you would like your students to have access to Creative Cloud for your class, you can request access for them on a semester-by-semester basis by emailing nrosa@hunter.cuny.edu with your course information in this format before the start of the semester:

CUNY is transitioning its officially supported learning management system from Blackboard to Brightspace. Please see the section on Brightspace for more information.

Blackboard is a learning management system that can be used to structure course content and communicate with students. Course shells are created for every course listed on CUNYFirst, but instructors need to make a course available to students if they intend to use it. Hunter College professors can receive training and support from the Technology Resource Center by contacting training@hunter.cuny.edu.

Blackboard support documents & videos for faculty
Blackboard support documents & videos for students
Video Tutorial: How to export your Blackboard course site

Workshop recordings

• Intro to Blackboard
• Intermediate Blackboard
• Assessments
• Grade Center
• Blackboard Tips & Tricks
• Blackboard for Students

Blackboard Collaborate

Blackboard Collaborate is the synchronous tool in Blackboard. Every course shell has a course room that professors can use to hold real-time class sessions. Collaborate has interaction tools such as text chat, screen sharing, polling, and whiteboards. Professors can also record lectures or virtual class sessions and make them available to students. Hunter College professors can receive training and support from the Technology Resource Center by contacting training@hunter.cuny.edu. 

CUNY is transitioning its officially supported learning management system from Blackboard to Brightspace. Brightspace is a product by a company called D2L or Desire-to-Learn. 

Hunter is in the 3rd group of CUNY colleges transitioning to Brightspace and our launch date is January 2, 2025. Hunter will begin to use Brightspace for all courses in Winter/Spring 2025. At no point will we have the same live course in two different systems. Course shells for the new semester will be created mid-November, 2024.  

CUNY has started migrating courses from Blackboard to Brightspace, and all Blackboard courses from Winter/Spring 2021 through Fall 2024 will be migrated. During this migration, all course materials such as files, links, and quizzes are copied to Brightspace. No student enrollment or work is transferred. All the tools currently integrated into Blackboard, such as Turnitin, VoiceThread and Hypothesis, will be available in Brightspace. Faculty will have access to Blackboard until the end of calendar year 2025. Please contact the LMS administrative team at lms@hunter.cuny.edu if you have questions regarding migration of Blackboard organizations and manually created course shells. 

Faculty already have access to Brightspace and can create practice courses. A widget on the home page after logging into Brightspace guides professors in the process. A practice course allows professors to experiment with course design and Brightspace tools, but does not allow professors to add students or colleagues. Professors can prepare for the transition by reviewing migrated courses, creating practice sites, attending CUNY workshops and viewing video recordings. They can also start saving, organizing, and making their course materials accessible. 

The Center for Online Learning at Hunter offers a series of three workshops that supplement the CUNY-led workshops. Please see details and registration links on our workshops page. 

Another way to become familiar with Brightspace’s interface and view neatly organized courses is to explore it as a student. The following two courses are open for self-enrollment. Click on the link for the course and on the “Enroll in Course” button after logging into Brightspace. 

1. The CUNY Effective Online Teaching – Hunter version course is useful to any professor considering the idea of teaching in modalities other than in-person. 
2. The Getting Started in Brightspace for Students – Hunter version course is meant to be an orientation course for students, but still helpful for professors wishing to see how to navigate through a Brightspace course.

Hunter College Resources: 

• Center for Online Learning Technology Workshops 
• Center for Online Learning Video Tutorials 
• Brightspace Tool Equivalents 
• Same Course on Bb & BrS Slides 
• CUNY Effective Online Teaching – Hunter Version 
• Getting Started in Brightspace for Students – Hunter Version 

CUNY Resources: 

• Brightspace transition Website 
• Brightspace Training Workshops 
• Workshop Recordings 
• Working with migrated sites in Brightspace 

CUNY Camtasia training & resources

Dropbox can be used to store and access files from different devices, share files, and collaborate on content. Active faculty and students can access CUNY Dropbox accounts by logging in through https://dropbox.cuny.edu with their @login.cuny.edu credentials.

CUNY Dropbox training & resources

ACERT Tech Tuesday presentation

• Dropbox for the win! (Julie Van Peteghem)

Gradescope is an artificial-intelligence-assisted grading tool for worksheets, quizzes and computer code. Hunter College professors can start using Gradescope by

1. Going to GradeScope.com and creating an instructor account using their Hunter email addresses.
2. Choosing “Hunter College” for “School.”
3. Entering “Hunter” in “invite code.”
4. Uploading a class roster as CSV file (first name, last name, email). (Consider using WebRoster.)
5. Notifying students to go to a link to GradeScope that the professor sends them and setting a password. (Students do not need to create new accounts.)

Gradescope resources & training

ACERT blog post

• Using Gradescope at Hunter (Katherine St. John)

ACERT lunchtime seminar

• Assessment with Gradescope (Partha Deb)

Hypothesis is a social annotation tool recently integrated into Blackboard. Professors can create asynchronous discussion and annotation assignments around webpages and PDF documents.

Hypothesis help & resources

Workshop Resources & Recordings

• Hypothesis Advanced Features workshop recording
• Starter Assignments

ACERT Tech Tuesday presentation

• Better Reading and Writing through Annotating: hypothes.is in the composition classroom (Jeff Allred & Renee Schaller)

The Microsoft Office 365 for Education suite includes standard tools such as Word, Excel, and PowerPoint as well as Forms (for surveys and quizzes), Sway (for webpages and presentations), OneDrive (for cloud storage), and Stream (for videos). It also includes the video discussion tool Flip. Active faculty at CUNY can access it by logging in at https://login.microsoftonline.com/?whr=login.cuny.edu using their @login.cuny.edu credentials. Instructors should read the Acceptable Use of Microsoft 365 for Education Policy before using it.

CUNY Office 365 information & resources

Padlet is a tool for sharing, collaborating, and posting notes. It allows professors to create digital boards (called “walls”) to gather text notes, images, websites and videos. Professors create walls and share them with students through a link. Hunter professors who want pro accounts can request one by writing to helpdesk@hunter.cuny.edu from their Hunter email addresses.

Padlet help & resources

ACERT Tech Tuesday presentation

• Padlet Power! (Laura Baecher)

Snagit is a simple tool to create, edit and share screen captures and recordings. To request a license and receive download instructions, please email Noeli Rosario-Sanchez at nrosa@hunter.cuny.edu.

Snagit help & Resources

Select speciality software is available to use in the CUNY Apporto virtual desktop environment. The following titles are available to use by any CUNY faculty member or student by logging in with your CUNY Login account:

• Microsoft Access
• ESRI ArcGIS Pro
• IBM SPSS Statistics
• Maplesoft Maple 2023
• Wolfram Mathematica
• Mathworks MATLAB R2023b
• Posit PBC R Studio
• SAS

Top Hat is a courseware platform with tools for taking attendance, compiling in-class student responses, giving interactive quizzes, and collecting homework assignments. Professors can also use it to create slides, author textbooks, and customize content of textbooks in Top Hat’s catalog.

Hunter has a site license for Top Hat, allowing you and your students to use the platform at no cost. To access Top Hat, go to tophat.com/start and create an Educator account. Use your @hunter.cuny.edu email address and select “Hunter College” as your School when creating your account.

Please contact Sumi Voora at sumi.voora@tophatmonocle.com for training and support.

Top Hat Knowledge Base

Top Hat Catalog

ACERT Lunchtime Seminar Presentation

• Faculty-authored Textbooks (Partha Deb)

Turnitin is a similarity detection tool that scans student work for matched text by comparing the work to a large database of student work, publications, and materials on the internet.

• It can be used to determine how much research was conducted by students.
• It can be used for peer review assignment.
• It is integrated within Blackboard.

Turnitin Resources

• Padlet on Turnitin

VoiceThread is a presentation and discussion tool integrated into Blackboard. VoiceThread allows instructors to record mini-lectures and create asynchronous conversations around course content. VoiceThread can also be used for students to create presentations.

VoiceThread help & resources

Workshop Resources & Recordings

• Humanizing your Online Courses with VoiceThread
• Game-Based Learning with VoiceThread
• VoiceThread for Assessments
• VoiceThread Assignments: Watch, Comment, Create
• Be Ready for Mother Nature with VoiceThread
• VoiceThread for STEM Courses
• VoiceThread for Language Courses
• VoiceThread & UDL (Universal Design for Learning)
• The Cure for Discussion Board Fatigue
• Group Projects in VoiceThread

Zoom is a video-conferencing tool that can be used for synchronous online classes and office hours. Zoom has interaction tools such as breakout rooms, screen sharing, polling, and whiteboards. It also has accessibility features such as live transcript generation and audio transcript editing in recordings. Faculty can use CUNY Zoom accounts by logging in through https://cuny.zoom.us with their @login.cuny.edu credentials.

Zoom help & resources
Hunter College Zoom Virtual Backgrounds (#1, #2, #3, #4, #5)
CUNY Zoom
Meetings Best Practices
Webinars Best Practices

ACERT Tech Tuesday presentation

• Superquick Presentation Recording using Zoom! (Laura Baecher)