Tools and Platforms
The CTL helps members of the Columbia teaching community effectively integrate instructional technologies in their teaching practice. Faculty, graduate students, postdocs, and staff can get advice, training, and support to experiment with a rich portfolio of online platforms and digital and media tools to turn classrooms into active spaces for learning.
On this page:
Get Support
Send inquiries to ColumbiaCTL@columbia.edu or contact the learning designer assigned to your department.
Audience Response Systems
Audience Response Systems (ARS) are used in classrooms of all sizes to engage participants by facilitating interactions among the students and the instructor. Instructors use audience response technologies to communicate with learners and collect feedback on questions. Learners respond to these questions using their own web-enabled devices, such as a phone, tablet, or laptop computer.
CourseWorks
Columbia’s learning management system, CourseWorks, is at the center of many instructional technology activities. CourseWorks is supplemented and enhanced by other tools that support a range of instructional objectives, such as tools for online collaboration, presentations, lecture capture, audience response, media annotation, and electronic portfolios.
EdBlogs
EdBlogs make it easy to share course content and create an online community using a blogging format. EdBlogs provides a blog for any course offered at Columbia University upon the course instructor’s request.
LionMail
LionMail includes LionMail (Google) Drive which provides unlimited file storage, as well as access to Google Docs, Sheets, Slides, and Forms. All these document types offer multiple collaboration and sharing options
Mediathread
Mediathread is an innovative media platform built by the CTL that supports collaborative multimedia analysis. Mediathread allows students to use video, audio, and image assets from a range of digital collections and then work with them in a course-specific website.
Panopto Media Service
Panopto is Columbia’s media platform featuring full storage and streaming functionality for audio and video content. Panopto supports recording and live streaming of classes and other events and can be integrated with CourseWorks/Canvas and other services through LTI integration. Panopto is particularly useful for flipped classroom, lecture capture/review, and online programs.
Zoom Video Conferencing
Zoom features full video conferencing functionality, breakout rooms, Canvas integration, and support for Android and iOS mobile.
Case Consortium @ Columbia
The Case Consortium @ Columbia includes a collection of over eighty multimedia case studies covering a range of topics in fields such as journalism, public health, and sustainable development.
CTL Knowledge Base
Gradescope
Gradescope is a tool designed to streamline and standardize the grading of paper-based, digital, and coding assignments. Gradescope allows for handwritten assignments to be graded digitally, and for multiple graders to collaboratively develop and implement their grading rubrics. It supports problem sets and projects as well as worksheets, quizzes, exams, and papers.
LinkedIn Learning
LinkedIn Learning (formerly Lynda.com) is an online training resource that offers videos on business skills, IT skills and desktop skills.
Teaching with Do-It-Yourself Video
This guide offers examples, principles, and best practices to help instructors create active and engaging classroom experiences using video, and provides information about the CTL’s DIY Media Production Spaces where instructors can create a variety of media, including interactive videos, screencasts, and annotated media.
Teaching Online
CTL has created resources providing guidance and support for instructors facilitating their courses online, including employing instructional technologies like CourseWorks (Canvas), Zoom, and Panopto to continue instruction and communicate with students.
The CTL researches and experiments.
The Columbia Center for Teaching and Learning provides an array of resources and tools for instructional activities.