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

Canvas Quick Tip: Drag and Drop Due Dates

Need to quickly change a course due date? Head to the Calendar in Canvas (on the far left of your screen on the Global Navigation Menu). From there, you can drag and drop an assignment due date to a new day.

Gif

 

Canvas Tip: New Analytics to Support Students

Did you know that New Analytics provides detailed reports about grades, activity in Canvas, and missing assignments? Take a look at the information below to learn more. This can be used to support your teaching with data and an easy way to communicate with students and families that need support.

*Credit to Nicole Pate of Del Sol Academy for the informational slides. Link to slides.

Submit a tech ticket if you have questions about this feature.

Elementary Teachers – Using IXL with Canvas

IXL integration with Canvas

In addition to accessing IXL via Clever, we have recently integrated IXL with Canvas to provide the following functionality (and more) within Canvas courses. 

Quick Launcher
Allows student to quickly access a few of the most valuable areas of IXL.com

Activity Selector
Allows teachers to create a direct links to an IXL skill, or the Diagnostic, from within Canvas

Activity Viewer/Launcher
Allows students or teachers to access an assigned IXL skill or Diagnostic

In sum, IXL’s integration with Canvas allows teachers to access IXL through Canvas and create activities using IXL skills or the Real-Time Diagnostic. Students can also access IXL through Canvas and navigate directly to certain sections of IXL, including skills or the diagnostic as selected by their teachers.

Check out the resources below to help you take full advantage of the integration features:

**Be on the look out for a synchronous, virtual training on IXL for our March 7 Professional Development day.**

(Thanks Bentley educator Kayleigh Gilo for the idea/encouragement to explore setting up this integration!)

PCEP Year-Long Courses now with Grading Periods

summary of grading period implications

High School teachers of PCEP year-long courses, please be aware that Grading Periods will be set up in your Canvas courses denoting each semester.

Year-Long PCEP Coursessummary of grading period implications

  • Teachers will have access to make edits, give feedback, and grade assignments in Canvas for first semester until 11:59 pm on February 2, 2022. After that date, the grades will not be editable.
  • Students will continue to have access to submit assignments with due dates in the first semester UNLESS YOU HAVE AN AVAILABLE UNTIL DATE OF JAN. 28 OR EARLIER.  You can edit those dates in bulk by following the steps here.

Semester 2 began January 31st, 2022.  You can filter your grade book to view assignments with due dates in the Semester 2 grading period by following the steps here.

The information above was also noted in our January 18, 2022 blog post.

If you have questions, please submit a tech ticket.

Zoom Features for your Virtual Classes

Zoom Updates

There have been some updates to Zoom that help facilitate online learning for teachers and students. Check them out below.

  1. Save Zoom recording directly to Canvas. You can now save your Zoom recordings directly to Canvas Studio to easily integrate and share with your students. It just requires a few clicks to set this up in Canvas. Video tutorial.
  2. Create a seating chart in Gallery View. In your account settings, you will need to enable, “Allow host to save video order.” When you are in your meeting, arrange the students as you would like while in Gallery View and click save. If it is a recurring meeting, the video order will be saved for future meetings. More information.
  3. Turn on Focus Mode. This mode allows you to see all the student screens, but students only see the teacher’s video. You can even set it up for your meeting to being in Focus Mode.  More information OR check out this  5 minute explanatory video
  4. More polling and quizzing options. Zoom has expanded their polls to eight different question types and added the ability to add images. You can also set up the poll to be a quiz. More information.
  5. Add video to the Waiting Room. Maximize instructional time by adding a video to play while participants are in the Waiting Room. Unfortunately, this is a general setting to be applied to all your waiting room and not tied to a specific meeting. You can customize this when logged in to your web portal at www.zoom.us Video tutorial.
  6. Zoom Learning Center. Zoom now offers a free educational platform for all new and existing users, including on-demand courses, live trainings, and short videos designed to give you just what you need when you need it to know how to best use their service. Login at https://learning.zoom.us/ Zoom Learning Center

How to Cross-List your Semester 2 Courses

As we approach Semester 2, those of you who are teaching multiple sections of the same course might consider cross-listing in Canvas. Cross-listing allows you to move section enrollments from individual courses and combine them into one course. This feature is helpful for instructors who teach several sections of the same course and only want to manage course data in one location. Many teachers who have tried it have asserted they would never go back to the old way since cross-listing is such a big time saver. However, this action should only be done before a semester starts. Indeed, Canvas recommends it be done before a course is published. If it is done after a course is published and notably student work has been submitted, that student work will be lost. Please review the slideshow below carefully to help you decide if you want to do it. 

Please reach out to a Technology Integration Specialist if you need help deciding if this is right for you or if you want assistance setting it up.