Reading Time: 3 minutes We’ve talked a lot about the Canvas/Microsoft partnership and how more Microsoft products and features are being incorporated into Canvas. Today, we’re revisiting one of those features – the Microsoft Immersive Reader. The Microsoft Immersive Reader is now available through more of Canvas. Initially only released on Canvas pages, it’s now also available on the syllabus, assignments, and a course’s home page. This reader presents the page text in a more accessible format where the user can choose the text preferences, grammar options, reading preferences, and to have the page content read to them. To launch the reader, click the “Microsoft Immersive Reader” button at the top right of a…
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Summer 2021 FOCUS Roundup
Reading Time: 2 minutes Welcome back for another semester! We know that summer is a busy time, and there’s great opportunities to take a step back and take a break. Because of that, we’re going to highlight some of the blog posts we wrote across the summer to get you back up to speed with what’s changed or been updated. Reassigning Canvas Assignments Canvas has added an easier way for you to ask your students to resubmit their work. There’s a “reassign assignment” button in SpeedGrader that you can click, and the assignment will be sent back to the student with your instructions for reworking it. For details, check out “Canvas Reassign Assignment: An Easy Way to Ask Students to Resubmit Work.” SpeedGrader Comment…
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Introducing CTL’s New Project Coordinator: Ryan Liming
Reading Time: < 1 minute My name is Ryan Liming, and I’m a new member of the Center for Teaching and Learning team. In my role as the Project Coordinator, I assist our team in starting, maintaining, and finishing projects. I am also here to support our faculty and staff in any way that I am able. Our students need a Christ-centered education, and you as faculty are on the front lines of that battle. While you continue to serve students through educating them in a particular area of study, discipling them as followers of Christ, and assisting in their development of a Biblical worldview, allow us at the CTL to serve you. Please reach out to…
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Canvas Feature: Annotation Assignments
Reading Time: 2 minutes Canvas has added a new way for students to complete assignments – annotating a document you upload. In this kind of assignment, students have access to all the annotation tools you use in SpeedGrader and create the annotations in the same kind of view. This assignment type can only be used for individual assignments – it will not work for a group assignment. But you might be thinking “Okay, this sounds cool. But what would I even use it for?” Having your students annotate a document is flexible and can be used for a myriad of assignments. You could have your students interpret lab results or statistics. They could practice peer editing…
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Canvas Update: Item Banks in Course Navigation and Item Bank Sharing Tweaks
Reading Time: 2 minutes With the latest update, Canvas has simplified how some aspects of New Quizzes work. They’ve added Item Banks to your course navigation, and they’ve also adjusted some of the sharing settings. Item Banks in Course Navigation We’ll look at the first item well…first. We’ve talked before about the hoops to jump through to add or edit questions in New Quiz Item Banks. That method is still valid, but Canvas has added a new way to jump to Item Banks quickly – a link directly in your course navigation (if you can’t see it there, check the Navigation tab of your course settings to make sure Item Banks is…
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Canvas Update: SpeedGrader Comment Library
Reading Time: 3 minutes Canvas is adding a new feature on June 19, 2021, to help make SpeedGrader even speedier – a library where you can save and quickly access feedback comments. Before we dive into the specifics of this new feature, we do need to define a couple of things first. What you typically think of as “SpeedGrader” is in fact two separate things that work together – DocViewer (the left side of the screen where you can see the document and annotate it) and SpeedGrader (the right panel where you enter grades and add overall feedback comments). This distinction is very important with this new feature – this is a SpeedGrader comment library. Now that we’ve made…
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Canvas Update: Release Notes Available in the Canvas Help Menu
Reading Time: < 1 minute We’re going to spend the next couple weeks looking at the new Canvas features being released in June. The first feature we’re focusing on is the release notes themselves. Release notes are currently available through the Canvas community website. You can go there each month to check out the planned changes or updates for Canvas. But Canvas is making it even easier to view each new installment of the release notes. Once this new update goes live on June 19, you’ll be able to access the release notes from the Canvas help menu. In that menu, you’ll see the release notes for whatever role(s) you have…
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Canvas Reassign Assignment: An Easy Way to Ask Students to Resubmit Work
Reading Time: < 1 minute Canvas has added a new tool in SpeedGrader to simplify your workflow. Imagine a student submits an assignment, but they dropped it in the wrong assignment or just grabbed the wrong document to upload. Previously, you’d message the student or leave a comment in SpeedGrader. The student would then need to see that note and remember to complete the request. Now Canvas has added a button in SpeedGrader that will add an assignment back to a student’s to-do list. Before we get into the how of this feature, there are some limitations you need to know about. This feature is only available for some types of assignments. It’s not available for External Tool (LTI), on paper, or no submission…
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How Can I Make Sure I Don’t Miss Q&A Forum Posts in Canvas?
Reading Time: < 1 minute Students will always have questions to ask and a myriad of ways to ask them. They could reply to an announcement you post in Canvas, send you an email, or post in the Course Q&A forum included in the template CTL provides. That Q&A forum allows students to put forth questions for you or the other students to answer. That forum doesn’t automatically give you notifications, but they’re easy to turn on. Go to the Course Q&A forum in your course. Just below the text box on the right side, you’ll see a “subscribe” button. Click that button, and you’ll get email notifications when questions are asked. Have…