• Canvas

    How to Transfer a Course to a New Semester in Canvas

    Reading Time: < 1 minuteIt’s still the ideal time to be thinking about your courses in Canvas for next semester. If you need to start from scratch, check out our post on Three Tips to Quickly Build a Course in Canvas. But what if you have a course already in Canvas that you want to reuse?  Canvas makes it simple to transfer content from one section (or semester) to another using the Course Import Tool. With this tool, you can transfer all of the content from a course, or you can pick and choose which pieces you want. After you’ve decided what content you want, you can opt to have…

  • Educational Tools,  Teaching & Learning

    How to Use Google Drive More Efficiently with Drive Priority

    Reading Time: 3 minutesIf you’re anything like me, you use Google Drive pretty extensively to keep your work organized. Drive is so easy and convenient to use – it doesn’t matter where I am or what device I use. I can always access my files. The tricky part about using a system that extensively is it eventually can take more time to find the file you need. With Drive, the search feature does work well to help you find what you need. But Google has introduced two features that make using Drive even easier: Quick Access and Priority.  Quick Access Google Drive now shows a banner of files at the…

  • Canvas,  Teaching & Learning

    Three Tips to Improve Accessibility in Your Course

    Reading Time: 2 minutesLet’s make sure we all start on the same page by defining our terms. When talking about “accessibility” related to the web or course materials, it’s easy to think about it in a context of screen readers and disability accommodations. But it’s more than that. According to the W3C Web Accessibility Initiative, accessibility means that products are not only designed in a way that people with disabilities can use them but also people who have “situational limitations” (being in a location where they cannot use their device as they typically would) or “temporary disabilities” (an injury that affects how they handle their devices).  Today we’re going to…

  • Canvas

    Three Tips to Quickly Build a Course in Canvas

    Reading Time: 3 minutesIt may seem like it’s early, but next semester is quickly approaching. Now is the perfect time to start thinking about your courses if you don’t want to spend time during break to pull them together. If you’ve already set up the course in Canvas, it’s a simple process to import the content and change the dates. But if you need to start from scratch (or a Moodle backup), here are three tips to help you speed up the process.  1. Make a game plan and template Take the time upfront and look over your course. Identify which pieces are consistent across it to make a template.…

  • Educational Theories,  Educational Tools,  Teaching & Learning

    The Future of Education: Mobile Learning in Higher Ed

    Reading Time: 2 minutesWhen I started working on this post, I downloaded a PDF to my MacBook. I read a bit of it in my office before heading over to an event. I AirDropped the PDF to my iPad to continue reading and start doing some annotating using GoodNotes. On my way home, I asked Siri to record some notes that I wanted to include in this post. The next morning, I AirDropped my notes to the MacBook, pulled up the annotated PDF on my iPad, and began typing.  Then I stopped and thought: I did all of this without thinking. Like it was normal. I was so overwhelmed with…

  • Canvas,  Educational Tools,  Teaching & Learning

    TurnItIn: Three Tips for Accurate Similarity Report Assessment

    Reading Time: 2 minutesCedarville University (CU) provides all faculty and students access to TurnItIn to help improve writing and prevent plagiarism. TurnItIn accepts user documents and compares them to material located on the Internet and in TurnItIn’s document repository. After the documents are compared, TurnItIn produces the Similarity Report which shows the parts of a student’s paper that are similar to other sources. Here are three tips to help you read the Similarity Report. Tip 1: Familiarize yourself with what Canvas and TurnItIn can do Get up to speed with all of the functionality the Canvas and TurnItIn integration has to offer by viewing or downloading the Canvas Plagiarism Framework…

  • Canvas

    Canvas Release Update: Course Navigation Visual Changes

    Reading Time: 3 minutesCanvas is implementing visual updates to course navigation on October 19, 2019. But don’t worry – this change will not affect how the navigation functions. This update will improve accessibility and clarity, especially regarding hidden menu items.  So, what are the changes?  Currently, course navigation displays items visible to students in black, items hidden to students in a light grey, and the current page with a blue highlight. When you hover over an item, it displays a light grey background. These style elements did not meet accessibility guidelines. The contrast between hidden and visible items was too low, and the hidden/visible status was only defined by color.…

  • Canvas

    Sandy Yang: Kudos for Canvas Chat

    Reading Time: 2 minutesOver the summer I taught three sections of Introduction to Humanities (85 students) in order to get a better grasp on Canvas, knowing that I would be coaching instructors new to the Canvas environment in the fall. My favorite part of the process was frequent—sometimes daily—encounters with my friends at Canvas Chat. Left navigation bar, last icon down, circle with a question mark. That was my go-to place for immediate help. Chat with Canvas Support (Faculty). Yes. Start Chat. Yes. Autofill my contact information. Choose severity: I can’t get things done until I hear back from you. Start Chat. Hello, _____, How can I help you today?…

  • Canvas,  Educational Tools,  Teaching & Learning

    Adding External Tools to Your Course

    Reading Time: 3 minutesWe’ve previously talked about how to use Ensemble for screen capture and webcam recording. We’ve also talked about how to add annotations, edit, and upload your video. But once you’ve uploaded your video, how do you get it into Canvas?  Ensemble is integrated with Canvas as an external tool, so it’s a simple process to add media to your course. We’re going to use Ensemble as an example here, but you’ll follow the same initial process to add any external tool to your course.  Add an external tool to a module If you want your video or other item from an external tool to be available directly…

  • Teaching & Learning

    Best Practices for Online Quizzes

    Reading Time: 2 minutesMoving from paper-and-pencil quizzes to online quizzes brings many benefits to students, instructors, and the institution. However, instructors may be concerned about offering online exams for fears of test security, especially for high-stakes quizzes. Some fear a scenario in which students are no longer using the information provided by the instructor to enhance their learning but rather online sources, such as Quizlet, to achieve the high marks they desire. An Inside Higher Education article (McKenzie, 2018) quoted a student’s tweet, “Today I graduated and I couldn’t have done it without God and Quizlet.” In this post, we will talk about some strategies that can be used to…