Reading Time: < 1 minutePreviously, we talked about how Canvas has added new ways to update the dates for assignments, quizzes, and discussions. This week, we’re going to be talking about that same topic – but about another change that’s coming Wednesday, August 28. After releasing this feature, Canvas realized that there was one factor they missed accounting for across their design process – the ability to quickly view the due dates on the settings pages for assignments, quizzes, and discussions. So they’re fixing that and reverting the settings pages to their previous design. This doesn’t negate any of the other updates they brought with the original “Assign To” update!…
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Canvas Update: Rubric Enhancements
Reading Time: 4 minutesCanvas has recently released some new updates to make creating and using rubrics easier. These changes can be seen in the “Rubrics” page in a course, the rubric builder, and SpeedGrader for any assignment that includes a rubric. Note: At this time, rubric rating descriptions will appear to be missing when an instructor views them through the student view. Students, however, can still see the rubrics and all information in them, including the descriptions for each rating. Rubrics page Previously, the rubrics page in a course was very simple – any rubrics in the course would be listed on the left, and there was also an “Add…
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Canvas Update: New Method for Adding or Changing Due Dates
Reading Time: 3 minutesWe’re all familiar with how to change the due dates or availability dates for an individual assignment, discussion, or quiz – you go into the settings, scroll down, and add or modify the dates. Now, if you follow that exact same method, you find a “Manage Assign To” link that slides out a panel where you can update all the information. While this change may seem confusing, it enables Canvas to modify how and where the “assign” feature can operate – and it can simplify the processes we use to work with these dates. With this feature update, you can now update dates directly from the Modules…
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Canvas Update: Inbox Out of Office and Signature Settings
Reading Time: < 1 minuteCanvas is rolling out new features and changes July 20, and we’ll be discussing two of them today – Canvas Inbox out of office and signature settings. While messages through the inbox are still rather bare-bones (the RCE is not used there, so messages are text-only – font styling cannot be changed and hyperlinks cannot be added), Canvas is now giving instructors some additional control over their inboxes. Both the out of office and signature settings are easy to set up! In your Canvas inbox, click the gear icon at the top right to open the Inbox settings. You’ll instantly see your options for both “Out…
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Generative AI, In Practice: Assignment Creation
Reading Time: 4 minutesLast spring, I taught an online course. In the middle of the semester, a student did not do well on one assignment and asked if I could give him another set of questions to review. I said yes. The assignment was a database design task that involved a business case and a dozen sample data rows – for example, a fictional medical clinic that uses Excel sheets to manage its appointments. The table in the image below contains sample data from last year. The most time-consuming aspect of creating a similar assignment was developing a new case and generating sample data which must represent as many unique…
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Generative AI, In Practice: Using GAI for Course Planning
Reading Time: 10 minutesRecently, I was tasked with creating a remedial English course for dual-credit students – but for this course, I needed to expand beyond my standard role as the instructional designer and also be the subject matter expert. Playing both roles is difficult, so I decided to employ ChatGPT to help with parts of the design. I started with what I knew. Because this is a dual-credit course, I knew there would be English content the students were passing over and, as a result, not getting in their high school courses. I also knew that the learners in this course would go directly into another college writing course.…
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Generative AI: Current State and Future State (e.g., tomorrow)
Reading Time: 3 minutesWriting a blog post detailing the current state of Generative AI (GAI) feels like a futile exercise. Why? During the writing of this post, the state of the industry will change. So, read with caution because like GAI, I can make mistakes. Having dispensed with the disclaimer, let’s get into what you are looking for in this post—the current state of GAI. First, OpenAI’s ChatGPT continues to lead the GAI industry, but Microsoft and Google are making advances with Copilot and Gemini, respectively. Amazon, Mistral, Facebook, and other open source models continue to push OpenAI to innovate and produce more value, but they cannot compete with ChatGPT.…
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Canvas Update: Discussions Enhancements
Reading Time: 4 minutesLast week, we talked about the updates Canvas is making to assignments. This week, we’re turning our focus to the discussions redesign in preparation for the changes to go live this weekend. These updates go a little deeper and have some added functionality. Let’s jump in and see what’s changed! 1. You can mention users in your posts! Canvas has added the ability for you to mention specific people in your posts. Simply type the @ symbol, and Canvas will give you a drop-down of all the people able to be tagged. 2. Canvas collapses threads automatically Canvas will collapse discussions threads so you only see the…
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Canvas Update: Assignments Enhancements
Reading Time: 3 minutesCanvas has been working on modifications to both assignments and discussions – and the changes are now ready to be live! In these two weeks leading up to the release of the updated assignments and discussions, we’ll be going through everything you need to know about the changes. This week, we’re looking at the assignment enhancements. These are primarily student-facing interface adjustments to track the “life cycle” of an assignment more easily. Let’s take a look! Here’s a screenshot of an updated assignment page. With the update, Canvas has moved or added a few things: The next chunk of the page is very much the same as…
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Generative AI, In Practice: ALT Text, Part II
Reading Time: 5 minutesLast week, we looked at some examples of alt text that Copilot generated for us and evaluated what we’d need to change before using them. It had done a good job with simple graphics, though the nuance of having elements faded more to the background and the meaning of that was lost on it. Copilot did not do a good job describing a still shot from a movie. But today, we’re going to look at this from a different angle – what can we do to help GAI create better alt text for us? Are there ways to prompt or feed it context to get drafts more…