Month: May 2022

Google LTI and Canvas Known Issue 4/12/22 – RESOLVED 5/9/22

UPDATE: Canvas and Google have worked together to RESOLVE the issue described in last month’s blog post shown below. Thank you for your patience.

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Some teachers are experiencing Canvas assignment submissions that are subsequently inaccessible to them. This has been occurring when a Canvas assignment is created and students load a file from Google Drive. When the teachers open Speedgrader, instead of seeing a preview of the document they see a link to an unknown file type that they are unable to download or view.

Error teachers experience with Google Drive submissions

Students will have a clue that submission didn’t come through correctly when they select and attach an item from Google Drive they will see this:

error on student side — Students will see this when their attachment is unsuccessful. They should follow the directions linked below to upload the file as a PDF.

This is a Google LTI issue and we are currently working on a resolution. There are several potential workarounds:

You can create a Google Assignment in Canvas that creates a copy for each student.
Students can download the file as a PDF and upload it to Canvas.
Students can paste the Shared Google link into the comments of an existing assignment.
Teachers can check the “Website URL” entry option under the submission type and students can submit the Shared Google link.

location of website URL option — Teachers can select this Website URL option where students can paste the Shared Google link to their file.

We will update this blog post when the issue has been resolved. Resolved as of 5/9/22

Canva for Education Webinars

Do you love Canva? Would you like to learn more about how to use it in your classroom? Canva Learning Consultants are providing “quick hit” webinars this Spring to help you envision how to use Canvas for student collaboration, use it in STEM courses, Arts courses, Humanities courses, and for parent communication. Register for the 30 minute webinar (Tuesdays from 6:00-6:30 pm) and attend live or catch the recording.

Click here to see the options and register.

Some recent Zoom updates

New and enhanced features include:

Zoom Whiteboard – In April, Zoom launched the all-new, designed-from-the-ground-up Zoom Whiteboard, a cross-platform visual collaboration solution accessible in Zoom Meetings, Zoom Rooms, the Zoom desktop client for Windows, macOS, Linux, and the Zoom web portal. With Zoom Whiteboard, you can brainstorm and collaborate on a persistent, infinite digital canvas. Manage, share, edit, and duplicate Whiteboards directly from the Zoom Web Portal to access Zoom Whiteboard anywhere.

View breakout room activities from main session – Once breakout rooms are open, hosts and co-hosts can view the level of activity in each breakout room, including which participants are in each room, along with icons that show whether their audio or video is on, if they’re sharing their screen, and if they have any active reactions or nonverbal feedback. This feature requires hosts and participants to have client version 5.10.3 or higher. Viewing breakout room activities from the main session is also available for Windows, macOS, and Linux desktop clients.

Central library of polls – Users can manage a central library of polls for meetings. They can create or edit polls and use them for Personal Meeting ID (PMI) and non-PMI meetings. Previously, polls for PMI and non-PMI meetings were managed separately. When a poll is marked as available to all meetings, it will appear in the list of polls that can be launched in a meeting. This new central repository will not replace the “Personal Meeting (PMI) polls”; polls created here will only appear in PMI meetings. This feature is also available for Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, and iOS desktop clients.

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How to get started with Zoom Whiteboard

To get started with Zoom Whiteboard, you’ll need Zoom version 5.10.3 or later. Here’s how you can create, access, and share your digital whiteboards:

Sign into your Zoom account using the Zoom client on your device or web browser.
Select the Whiteboards tab, and choose New Whiteboard to start a whiteboard.
To view your whiteboards, select the ‘My Whiteboards’ tab. You can also select ‘Shared with Me’ to view whiteboards that have been shared with you.
To share a digital whiteboard you’ve created, open the whiteboard you wish to share, select the Share button, and type the contact or email you wish to share the board with.

*Pro tip: Be sure to visit our support page to learn more about Zoom Whiteboard and its features!

Download the latest version of the Zoom desktop client to access all these features and more.

In early summer, Google will be replacing multiple-location Drive files with shortcuts

FYI, starting on June 27, 2022 and in the weeks thereafter, Google will be replacing multiple-location Drive files with shortcuts. Any impacted users in our domain will start seeing an in-product notification banner about two weeks before the replacement starts. The banner will notify them about the change and will point them to a support article with more info. The migration will take place automatically—no action will be required by users.

Google’s change is meant to simplify folder and file structures and helps reduce confusion around files with multiple parent folder locations.

When a file is replaced with a shortcut:

One location is preserved for files or folders currently contained in multiple locations. All other instances of the item will be replaced with a shortcut.
Ownership and sharing permissions for files and folders are preserved.

Drive shortcuts

Suggested Laptop Maintenance

The tech department would like to suggest the following maintenance steps to ensure the best performance from your new laptop.

Clear your Chrome Browsing Data and Cookies every couple of weeks (with Time range All Time) / Ditto for all Microsoft Edge users (click here for easy steps)
Do a full restart of your laptop at least once a week
If you teach in the Virtual Academy, at least monthly come onto campus (the parking lot is sufficient) with your computer. After initially connecting via district WIFI, restart your laptop and log back in, then allow 15-20 minutes for any updates to run in the background while you are on it. So if you are planning to come on-campus for any reason, please bring your laptop, and restart and log into it when there!

Making sure you perform periodic restarts and logging into your laptop while on the district network does several important things to improve performance including clearing the laptop’s Random Access Memory (RAM) which can otherwise over time bog down its system resources and allowing important and useful district updates to to run at start up (as one example, a needed component to run the updated Canvas Studio Screen Recorder requires a one time laptop restart and new log in while in district so a log in script that is associated with user accounts can install it).

We appreciate your help to ensure the best possible performance of your laptop. Please submit a tech ticket if you have any questions.

Matt Miller May

cover of Tech Like a Pirate by Matt Miller

If you have not heard of Matt Miller, author of Ditch that Textbook and other titles, it is your lucky day! His website, books, and podcast are full of great teacher tips. Recently, he has promoted an EfficienTEACH series to help you save time and have a big impact on student learning. Check out some of his fantastic resources below, click the picture to access the links.