App Smash: Canva, Flipgrid, and Canvas

Canva now has ready-to-go Flipgrid background templates. These templates are great for teachers and students to give book reviews, teach about main ideas, or building community.

Search “flipgrid” when you are in Canva and you can select a template that works for you. Customize it to your liking, download the image, and then add it as a background in a Flipgrid video (students and teachers can make stand-alone videos with Flipgrid Shorts).

If you are doing it for a student assignment, students can easily submit the video in Canvas as a website URL or by downloading the video and uploading it to Studio.

See the <4 minute video below on how this can be done.

Canva blog post: https://www.canva.com/learn/flipgrid-integration/

Student Tutorial for Uploading a Video to Studio to Submit: https://ior.ad/7V6x

Student Tutorial for Submitting a Website URL: https://ior.ad/7Tqv

If you want to learn more about how Canva and Canvas integrate see our previous blogpost or enroll in the asynchronous Canvas course.

 

Canvas Assignment Submission Tutorials, and More!

In an effort to support students, teachers, and families we have created additional technology tutorials. We have put special emphasis on tutorials for various, Canvas submission types for students. We hope this will help all stakeholders as Canvas remains the best way to continue coursework when students need to be out for an extended time. Please keep in mind, the users on a the mobile app will have a different experience and should consult these guides: https://community.canvaslms.com/t5/Canvas-Mobile-Users/gh-p/mobile

This resource is available for teachers on the Digital Teaching Hub. https://tech.pccsk12.com/canvas-lms/

It is also available for students and families on the Digital Learning Hub. https://sites.google.com/pccsk12.com/hlh/canvas

For your convenience it is embedded below.

 

P-CEP High School Grading Periods

summary of grading period information

As of November 19th, now that Quarter 1 grades have been turned in at the secondary level, Grading Periods will be in place in Canvas to reflect the closing of Q1 grades in MiStar. Students will have view-only access to first quarter course content and will be unable to submit work for assignments associated with the first quarter (Q1) since it is not the current grading period. While teachers can edit their previous term’s course content, they cannot make further adjustments in the feedback or grading of any non-current grading period submissions.

When grading periods are enabled, the due date of an assignment will determine the grading period within which the assignment will appear in the Gradebook. If no due date is set, the assignment defaults to the last (current) grading period available for the course. Therefore, if there is a quiz or assignment that a student must still complete from a past quarter, you might make a copy of that quiz/assignment, give it a due date in the current grading period, and assign it just to the few students that need it. In that case, grade passback to MiStar should be avoided and, should you want it reflected in MISTAR manually enter the grade for those students in the Q1 quiz or assignment instead (note, even if this is done, the student’s viewable-as-of November 12th report card, won’t reflect any change).

Importantly, while students will still find their definitive grades in MISTAR, this grade period demarcation will also result in a more accurate current grade average, as far as what Canvas reflects, since only the current marking period will be presented.

Please find quick overview directions and screenshots in this document.

*Please note elementary teachers — it is very conceivable that we will similarly update Canvas for courses that span grading periods too, in the coming weeks, to allow for term filtering.

Submit a ticket for more support.

Middle School Teachers: Transition from Quarter 1 to Quarter 2 in Canvas reflected by grading periods

summary of grading period information

As of November 10th, now that Quarter 1 grades have been turned in at the secondary level, Grading Periods will be in place in Canvas to reflect the closing of Q1 grades in MiStar. Students will have view-only access to first quarter course content and will be unable to submit work for assignments associated with the first quarter (Q1) since it is not the current grading period. While teachers can edit their previous term’s course content, they cannot make further adjustments in the feedback or grading of any non-current grading period submissions.

When grading periods are enabled, the due date of an assignment will determine the grading period within which the assignment will appear in the Gradebook. If no due date is set, the assignment defaults to the last (current) grading period available for the course. Therefore, if there is a quiz or assignment that a student must still complete from a past quarter, you might make a copy of that quiz/assignment, give it a due date in the current grading period, and assign it just to the few students that need it. In that case, grade passback to MiStar should be avoided and, should you want it reflected in MISTAR manually enter the grade for those students in the Q1 quiz or assignment instead (note, even if this is done, the student’s viewable-as-of November 12th report card, won’t reflect any change).

Importantly, while students will still find their definitive grades in MISTAR, this grade period demarcation will also result in a more accurate current grade average, as far as what Canvas reflects, since only the current marking period will be presented.

Please find quick overview directions and screenshots in this document.

Please also revisit this blog post from last November on how to extend access for students to a Canvas course past the term end date based on an interest in allowing students an additional time period to access course content or to interact with and submit coursework.

*Please note elementary and high school teachers — it is very conceivable that we will similarly update Canvas for courses that span grading periods too, in the coming weeks, to allow for term filtering.

Submit a ticket for more support.

Canvas Pro-Tip: Estimated Time Pill Box

sample pill box imageWhen you enter into a task, it is helpful to know approximately how long something might take. Don Lourcey, on the Iredell-Statesville School District has gathered some code so that an estimated time to complete can be added to the top of your Canvas pages and assignments (see image sample above). This small step might be very useful for students and families working on your course at home and help the students in front of you to manage their attention level.

You can use this ReadTime website to help you estimate how long it might take for students to read the text on your page.

See the code below that can be copied and pasted into the HTML editor of your Canvas page. Change the “30 mins” as needed to reflect the estimated time (eg. “15 mins”, “20 minutes” or “1 hour”). A video tutorial is included at the bottom of this page.

Estimated Reading Time code

<ul class=”pill”>
<li>Estimated Reading Time</li>
<li>30 mins</li>
</ul>
<ul class=”pill”></ul>

Estimated Time to Complete code

<ul class=”pill”>
<li>Estimated Time to Complete</li>
<li>30 mins</li>
</ul>
<ul class=”pill”></ul>

Estimated Reading and Viewing Time code

<ul class=”pill”>
<li>Estimated Reading & Viewing Time</li>
<li>30 mins</li>
</ul>
<ul class=”pill”></ul>

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.

notification settings image

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

 

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.

option to print new quiz

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

menu to select print 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.

option to build a new quiz directly from modules

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.

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.

  1. 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.

Steps for setting up grade sync each night

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.

 

 

Monday Tech Coffee Chat: Supporting Absent Students

This Monday, September 27, we will be holding another TIS Coffee Chat on the topic of Supporting Absent Students. We will talk about how to add an Absent button and set up your information page for Absent students. Sessions are only about 20 minutes long and take place over Zoom.

Start Times (feel free to attend at a time that works best for you):

Feel free to browse the Session Resources which includes a helpful, technical document for broadcasting your class via Zoom: https://wke.lt/w/s/jd6oHX

Check out the recordings of previous sessions.