Looking for your Canvas Course?

If you have logged into Canvas recently, you may have had a moment of panic to see that your 21-22 courses are not on your dashboard. Rest assured, they are still there. If you navigate to https://pccsk12.instructure.com/courses and scroll to the bottom of the page, you’ll see it the courses under “Past Enrollments.” You can also access these through the Global Navigation Menu:

directions to get to all courses

The courses are currently in read-only format and you’ll be able to import your content into your new course shells in the fall (we’ll publish directions as it gets closer). If you would like to make some edits and updates to you your course. Click on the course under Past Enrollments, go to Settings on the Course Navigation Menu and you’ll see the “Copy this Course” button.

location of copy course button

You can use this Canvas guide for the steps that follow. Once completed, you’ll have a version of your course on your dashboard that you can update and edit and them import that content in the fall.

If you have any questions, please submit a tech ticket.

Canvas Updates You May Have Missed

Canvas update summary

Canvas is always striving to make improvements for users. Just this week they are offering teachers the option to “Message OBSERVERS of Students Who…” Canvas has always had the option to message students who had missing work or scored more/less than, but now teachers will be able to have greater control of the students and observers that get the message.

workflow for messaging observers

Wondering what other cool updates you may have missed from Canvas in 2022? Here’s a quick look:

All Your Tech End-of-Year Posts in One Spot

We hope you have an extremely restful summer. We have posted a few items over the last several weeks and wanted to link highlights here in case you missed any of them.

Canvas

Rest assured, you really don’t need to do anything to your Canvas page. It will roll over to Past Enrollments and you will be able to copy the content into your new course shell. You can check out the slidedeck below (used for an in-person session) to get a little more information about what that looks like and what you could do to create an extra back-up or a version of your course you can work on updating over the summer.

You can also access our blog post on the topic here.

Classroom Technology

Our recommendations for your classroom technology (projectors, doc cams, microphones, etc.) can be found here.

You can also review our suggested laptop maintenance to keep it performing at its best.

Clever Syncing Paused

We’ve already paused Clever syncing so that students can continue to access their current teachers’ Clever pages and digital subscriptions (e.g IXL, BrainPop, Seesaw) via Clever through mid August.

Sharing Digital Content

Whether you are separating from service, working on curriculum, or you are teaching different classes next year there are several options for sharing digital content with colleagues.

Summer Learning

When you are ready to digging into some topics that you may not have had time to explore we have a few ideas.

Summer Vision Board

GoogleEDU Created These Summer Vision Boards 
Here’s some great templates that can be used for vision planning, regardless of season. Just change as needed. Students could also use some of these slides for their own learning during the school year. Helpful stickers included, too.  Google EDU Templates

Have a great summer! If you want to chat with a Technology Integration Specialist over the summer, we are available! Submit a tech ticket if you would like to set up a meeting.

All the resources linked about have also been curated in this Wakelet Collection. https://wke.lt/w/s/iv8Y5-

Be Aware: Google Dictionary Extension

image showing what the use of the extension looks like on a page

A few teachers have noticed that students have access to install the Google Dictionary Chrome Extension. This is an approved and useful educational extension. However, teachers have noticed it being used in online Canvas Quizzes or Google Forms. The extension allows a students to double click on a word and get the definition.

image showing what the use of the extension looks like on a page

If a student clicks “More,” a new tab is opened up with more definitions, synonyms, and usage examples.

If you are going to give an online tests or quizzes, it is important to set expectations with students about what behaviors are permitted and monitor students actively. Here’s what the extension looks like, but keep in mind that extensions can be installed and not pinned. You would need to have a student go here: chrome://extensions/ to determine if it is installed.

Image showing where extension are located in Google chromeAdditionally, it important to work with grade level and department teams to develop “non-Googleable” questions. Not only will this help curb cheating, but more importantly, it will also help teaching and learning progress to greater depths of knowledge.

To find out more about non-Googleable questions, check out these resources:

 

Year-End Canvas Info

Canvas end-of-year tips

The good news is, there isn’t much to worry about with Canvas at the end of the year. It will automatically convert your course to read-only for students and roll your course into Past Enrollments. When next year’s course shell appears you will be able to import last year’s course content with a few clicks.

There are a few things you can do if you’d like to make adjustments to your course over the summer or if you like to have a just-in-case copy. Peruse the items below for more information, save it at this link, or get a PDF copy here.

Canvas New Quizzes Update: Fill in the Blank RCE

Summary

In New Quizzes, this feature allows Instructors to add content as part of the question stem and make portions of the content fillable in the student response.

Change Benefit

This change allows instructors to create fill-in-the-blank questions with rich content such as scientific or mathematical formulas or a table. Additionally, instructors can format fill-in-the-blank questions to appear on separate, distinct lines.

Feature Workflow

new quizzes question editor
New Quizzes question editor

When adding a fill-in-the-blank question, type a statement in the rich content editor and surround a word with backticks to indicate where a student fills in the answer.

fill in the blank answer options
Fill in the Blank Answer Options

In the Answer Type drop-down menu, select the Dropdown option [1], enter the correct answers and distractor answers, if needed. Possible Answer Types include a dropdown, open entry, or word bank [2].

Check out the overview video below.

Sharing Digital Resources with Colleagues

If you are retiring from teaching, changing roles, or changing grades, you might be wondering how you can best share some of your teaching materials with colleagues from your department or team.  This post will offer some suggestions. If you are retiring or leaving the district, a separate email will be sent to you regarding how to return district technology at the end of the school year. Please be on the look out for that email if it applies to you.

Share Google Content with Colleagues

You will want to make sure that a colleague you want to share files with is made the owner of a document or folder. You can change this if you are the current owner.

image showing where to update the owner
This option is best if you are leaving the district. Change this setting after you have used Google Transfer or Download.

If you are not leaving the district and want your files shared, but not altered, you might download a folder and then re-upload it to your Drive naming it “3rd Grade Originals.” This will allow you to maintain a copy of your versions of the documents.

Please be mindful about checking folders before you share them to ensure confidential, student information is not shared.

Share Canvas Course Content

You are able to export your Canvas course as an IMSCC ZIP file that can be uploaded into many Learning Management Systems (if you are leaving the district) or shared via a thumb drive.

image showing course copy optionIf you want to share your course with another teacher, you can make a copy of your course (found in Settings). When you make the copy you can select the specific content you are willing to share, give it a name (i.e. Bullock Shared US History) and then add your colleague(s) as a teacher in the course.  Finally, to make your course more widely available to others at P-CCS you can export your course to Canvas Commons, when you export you can choose to make it viewable to the public or only to P-CCS teachers. 

Share Video Content

While it is best practice for instructional videos to be made by the existing teacher, it might be helpful for others to reference your video lessons. If you would like to share your video lessons, we recommend this workflow:

Please submit a tech ticket if you have additional questions about sharing content.

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:

  1. You can create a Google Assignment in Canvas that creates a copy for each student.
  2. Students can download the file as a PDF and upload it to Canvas.
  3. Students can paste the Shared Google link into the comments of an existing assignment.
  4. 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

Awesome Analytics with Canvas Studio

Canvas Studio is a tools that allows instructors and students to actively collaborate through video and audio media.

It has the ability to:
Why would you use it?
And newly-updated View Insights!
  • You have always been able to view graphs on who viewed you video and for how long.
  • Now you can also see what parts of the video get played or replayed most often so you can better understand what was useful for students.
  • You can see a viewer list and easily see the completion rate for each.

Image of Studio viewer list

If you want to chat more about the possibilities with Canvas Studio, submit a tech ticket and we’d be happy to answer your questions and walk through it with you.

New Features Coming to Canvas 4/16/22

Highlighted below are a number of new features that will be available in Canvas after this Saturday’s (4/16) update.

  1. Default Assignment Due Time
  • An oft-requested feature that will be welcome by many. Currently, when creating an assignment, the default time for that assignment is set for 11:59 p.m. This feature will allow assignment makers to change the default due time to a different time.
    • To change the default due time, go into your course settings, locate a box called “Default Due Time”, click into the box and change to your preferred time.

2. Apply Score to Ungraded Assignments

  • The Apply Score to Ungraded Assignments feature allows scores to be applied to multiple ungraded submissions at once. This change allows instructors to apply scores to ungraded submissions en masse from an assignment group and total column menus in the Gradebook.
    • To use, locate the options menu from an assignment group or the Total column in the Gradebook and select Apply Score to Ungraded.

3. Rich Content Editor(RCE) Icon Maker

  • Another requested feature is the ability to create icons from right within Canvas. This feature change provides instructors the ability to incorporate simple icons for their courses without using an external tool. The Icon Maker allows simple customized iconography to be created directly within the Rich Content Editor.
    • To use, when in Rich Content Editor(RCE) locate an icon with various shapes. Click on this icon, and follow the instructions to build the icon.

Some of the other new features are New Quiz abilities and Emojis in Submissions.

To find out more information about all of these new features, please visit: https://community.canvaslms.com/t5/Canvas-Releases/Canvas-Release-Notes-2022-04-16/ta-p/515876