Category: Blog

October Canvas Updates

Over the weekend, you may have noticed a few updates to Canvas:

Sticky Navigation Menus: Now when you scroll down a Canvas page, the Course Navigation Menu remains visible.
SpeedGrader Submission Status: You can now change the submission status of an assignment (late, missing, excused) directly in SpeedGrader (previously, you could only do that in the Gradebook).
Gradebook Assignment Search: Now you can search the gradebook by student name and assignment name. More Gradebook search updates are coming later this month!
Accessibility Checker Notification: Have you ever noticed the little Accessibility icon at the bottom of the Rich Content Editor? It allows you to check how accessible your content is, and now, it will have a notification alert if it finds issues. Be sure to click on it and check its suggestions before publishing.
Microsoft Immersive Reader: This is a great tool embedded on many pages that allows people to have text read aloud to them (at faster or slower speeds), translate text, have access to a picture dictionary, and much more. Previously it was only on Canvas pages, but now it is also available in Assignments and the Syllabus. If you haven’t tried it out before, check it out, it is next to the Student View button in the upper, right corner.
Course Notification Settings: You can adjust your notifications by course.

To keep up-to-date on upcoming Canvas updates or to view more information about these updates, visit this website: https://community.canvaslms.com/t5/Canvas-Releases/tkb-p/canvas-release

Canvas

Canva is a free online tool that educators can use that has an extensive library of images, templates, worksheets, presentations, etc. Recently they announced the ability to not only add video, but also the ability to edit videos and collaborate on videos. If you are interested in more information on Canva, and/or if you are interested in learning more about Canva, there will be an asynchronous course available to learn Canva on the PD day(November 2nd).

For a brief tutorial on the video editor, and its capabilities, we are including a video down below – see also our last blog post about Canva and how to access it HERE:

Canva

Put your cyber savvy to the test

Take the quiz: How vulnerable are you to cyber threats?
Are you putting the district or yourself at risk without knowing it? This security assessment will help you identify whether your cyber knowledge is up to par – or if you could use a little refresher. Take the next five minutes to see where you stand.

OA27_QUIZ_STANDARD

Two of this month’s Google updates

Every month tweaks and changes occur in one or more of our Google apps. Here are two of this month’s.

Create meeting notes in Google Calendar. Available starting in late October, quickly start and share a meeting notes document for your Calendar events.

Add image watermarks in Google Docs. You can now add image watermarks directly into Google Docs.

Cybersecurity Awareness Month – Safety Tips Sheets, Posters, and Lesson Plans

STOP. THINK. CONNECT.™ is the global online safety awareness campaign to help all digital citizens stay safer and more secure online. They have a large collection of posters, tip sheets, and videos that you can use to promote good online safety practices. They maintain a resource page with tip sheets to posters to videos and more, to help you stay safer and more secure online and better protect your personal information. All of these resources are free to use, download and share at home, at work and in the community. We have embedded two of the many videos they have below. Here’s also a link to one of their advice posters.

Free Lesson Plans
Google for Education’s Applied Digital Skills lesson library includes a couple of lesson plans that align with Cybersecurity Awareness Month.

Avoid Online Scams is a lesson plan for middle school and high school classrooms. This lesson includes a scenario in which students have to identify the signs of a scam phone call and email then decide how to respond.

BrainPOP Information Privacy Lesson

October is Cybersecurity month. How can you facilitate student learning about this topic? BrainPOP has videos and accompanying lessons for grades 3-12. Teachers of younger learners can check out BrainPOP Jr for more appropriate videos and lessons. P-CCS has a K-12 subscription to BrainPOP products and they are accessible via Clever. Check out this lesson on information privacy.

Meet OrbitNote (formerly the Texthelp PDF Reader tool)

The TextHelp PDF Reader has officially been reborn as OrbitNote!

Earlier this summer, the Texthelp PDF Reader was updated and became OrbitNote. This update included a new look & easier onboarding. P-CCS students & staff have access to all the PREMIUM features of OrbitNote detailed below.

If you’re not familiar with it yet, OrbitNote allows staff & students to transform and interact with PDFs and digital documents in a completely different way. It helps to create an accessible, dynamic and collaborative space that works for everyone.

You & your students can use OrbitNote to:

And more!

There is NO ACTION required for students or staff who were already using the PDF Reader; the new OrbitNote extension auto-updated. Students and staff may have to update permissions with the first use of the new tool.

Staff who have not used the Texthelp PDF Reader in the past will need to install the extension here.

For more information about using OrbitNote, including Canvas LMS integration, go to the RW4G@PCCS website: https://bit.ly/PCCS-OrbitNote

The new OrbitNote Quick Reference Guide is available here.

Videos: https://text.help/orbitvids
Technical Support: https://support.texthelp.com

You might also want to check out this video of OrbitNotes used in Canvas and/or a comprehensive overview of many of TextHelp’s features:

OrbitDoc (now OrbitNotes) used in Canvas

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dmEWuu-YxoY

October is Cybersecurity Month

October is a month to take special note of cybersecurity. This week we would like to highlight some basics of cybersecurity.

https://tech.pccsk12.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Own-Your-Role-in-Cybersecurity_-Start-with-the-Basics-.pdf

Print Canvas New Quizzes

If you would like to have a paper copy of a Canvas quiz for certain students, you can easily do that in New Quizzes. Just click the 3 dots (or TimBits) in the upper, right corner to reveal more options.

After selecting the print option, you will be able to choose the preferred text size.

One other enhancement with New Quizzes is that you can bypass the assignment details screen and get right into building question when you are designing a unit in modules. See below.

If you like these enhancements but mostly have Classic Quizzes in your course, you can begin the process of migrating them to New Quizzes with these directions.

Canvas

New Nightly MiStar/Canvas Grade Auto-Syncing

Steps for setting up grade sync each night

If you would like your Canvas grades to automatically sync with your MiStar gradebook each night, that is now possible with just a few clicks.

Make sure Grade Sync is enabled under Settings/Navigation

Showing grade sync enabled — Students do not have access to this page.

2. Once enabled and saved, you can navigate to the Grade Sync from the Course Navigation menu and toggle the option on.

If you need more information about the necessary set up for your Canvas Grades to sync with MiStar, take a look at the resources on the P-CCS Tech website.

Canvas