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CTL Professional Development Brochure, Winter 2019

Posted on December 13, 2018 | Leave a comment

We’re pleased to announce the release of the Winter 2019 Professional Development Brochure.

New this semester:

Canvas Groups

Increase engagement in your course by assigning students to
Canvas Groups to collaborate on assignments, presentations
and projects. Within Canvas Groups, students may share files,
message their group, and create announcements, pages,
discussions, conferences and collaborations.
In this workshop you will:

  • Set up Groups
  • Create a Group Assignment
  • Visit a Group
  • Grade a Group Assignment

Collaborating in Canvas

Collaboration among students and faculty is possible in Canvas using either Google Drive or the Office 365 OneDrive. This allows students to simultaneously work on the same document with others in the class. A few examples of how this solution might be used are team projects, practice activities and peer reviews.In this workshop you will:

  • Create a collaboration in Canvas using Google Drive
  • Create collaborations in Canvas using Office 365
  • Interact as both a teacher and student using each interface
  • Reflect on the benefits / challenges of using collaboration tools

Quizzes

Explore Canvas Quizzes with your colleagues while working asynchronously on replacing your on-ground Scantrons or paper assessments with online quizzes or surveys! In this workshop,you will create online graded and non-graded quizzes and surveys using the Quiz tool. Hidden gems, such as the Moderate This Quiz feature, Quiz Analytics, Question Groups and Question Banks will be covered. As always, course facilitators are available for questions and feedback!

Rubrics

Rubrics can be a great way to communicate and manage
expectations for an assignment and how your students will be
assessed. You may already be using rubrics as a part of your
grading process, but did you know that Canvas has a rubric
feature that can expedite and ease your grading process?
In this workshop you will:

  • Design a rubric using measurable criteria
  • Identify rubric options and settings
  • Create a Canvas rubric
  • Grade using your Canvas rubric
  • Reflect on designing, creating and grading using rubrics

Please review the Professional Development Brochure and register for workshops in the Noncredit/Continuing Education area of WebAdvisor on MyMacomb. 

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November 17 and December 8 Canvas Releases

Posted on November 28, 2018 | Leave a comment

Canvas is updated every third Saturday with new features and fixes. The Macomb CTL will post highlights from the production release notes and related content to our blog at ctl.emacomb.com.  Please contact us at ctlsupport@macomb.edu if you have any questions about Canvas releases. 

 

November 17 and December 8 Releases

Please see the New Feature Screencast for a video demonstration of the updates in this release.

The screencast for the December 8 release will be made available closer to the release date.

 

Rich Content Editor: Embedded Image File Uploads
  • Students and instructors may now upload an embedded image/file directly into the Rich Content Editor.
  • Click the Embed Image button in the Rich Content Editor to use the updated interface:

  • Select the Canvas tab and you’ll be able to quickly embed files from Course Files and My Files.

  • From this screen, you may also upload new images from your device to My Files and embed them on the page.

 

Accessibility: Screen Reader Browser Support

Screen reader support for Internet Explorer 11 and Edge browsers has been discontinued. Firefox is the recommended browser for those using screen reading software to access Canvas.

 

Reorder Dashboard Course Cards
  • You may now move the course cards on your Dashboard. Click the Options menu (three dots) to see four choices for moving the card.

  • Cards can now be dragged and dropped as well, for easier placement.
  • Newly-added courses will appear at the bottom of the course card list.

 

HTML5 Supported in Media Recorder

The Record Media button in the Rich Content Editor now supports HTML5 for Firefox and Chrome browsers. You will see an updated interface for the Record/Upload Media dialog box:

Flash is still supported for Internet Explorer users, but you must verify that it is enabled.

  1. From the Settings gear, select “Manage Add-ons”
  2. Locate Shockwave or Flash from the publisher Adobe Systems Inc.
  3. If status is Disabled, click Enable button.

This update will make it easier for Chrome and Firefox users to use the Media Recorder. Previously, users had to manually allow Flash, which is blocked by default in Chrome and Firefox.

Full production release notes for the November 17 and December 8 releases are available on the Canvas LMS Community.

The next Canvas release will be deployed on Saturday, January 5, with release notes available Monday, December 17.

 

Images on this page are from the Canvas Guides, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International Agreement.

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October 27 Canvas Release

Posted on November 2, 2018 | Leave a comment

Canvas is updated every third Saturday with new features and fixes. The Macomb CTL will post highlights from the production release notes and related content to our blog at ctl.emacomb.com.  Please contact us at ctlsupport@macomb.edu if you have any questions about Canvas releases. 

October 27 Release

Please see the New Feature Screencast for a video demonstration of the updates in this release.

Analytics Beta LTI
  • The Analytics Beta LTI tool will eventually replace the existing Course Analytics tool
  • Compare average and individual student grades across various assignment types
  • Interactive tables and graphs facilitate powerful data analysis
  • Activate Analytics Beta through Settings > Nagivation
  • Complete documentation on features
  • User Guide for Analytics Beta

 

Submission Status of Google Drive and Office 365 Uploads
  • The status of assignment uploads from Google Drive and Office 365 LTIs are now visible to both students and instructors

  • Exclamation point indicates upload failed, up arrow indicates a submission is queued for upload but has not finished

  • Instructors may view the same icons in the Gradebook
  • Icons also visible in SpeedGrader

 

HTML5 Option for Recording Media

Recording with the Rich Content Editor will no longer require Flash functionality.

 

Full production release notes for the October 27 release are available on the Canvas LMS Community.

The next Canvas release will be deployed on Saturday, November 17, with release notes available Monday, November 5.

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October 6 Canvas Release

Posted on October 10, 2018 | Leave a comment

Canvas is updated every third Saturday with new features and fixes. The Macomb CTL will post highlights from the production release notes and related content to our blog at ctl.emacomb.com.  Please contact us at ctlsupport@macomb.edu if you have any questions about Canvas releases. 

October 6 Release

Please see the New Feature Screencast for a video demonstration of the updates in this release.

 

Anonymous Annotation
  • Instructors may now add anonymous annotations to student submissions. This feature must be activated on the course level in the Feature Options tab of the Course Settings page:

Allow anonymous annotations in Course Settings page.

  • On the Edit Assignment page, you’ll now see a checkbox to anonymize the annotations for that assignment.

  • When students view their submissions in DocViewer, the instructor’s name will show as “Grader” on the annotations.

 

Rotate Documents in DocViewer
  • DocViewer now offers the capability to rotate pages within a document. See the new Rotate button in the Toolbar:

DocViewer document rotation

  • Instructors and students can rotate on a page-by-page basis to quickly fix documents with incorrect orientation.

 

Mark element in Rich Content Editor
  • The Mark HTML element, better known as highlighting, is now supported by the Rich Content Editor:

  • To use Mark highlighting, enter the HTML editor from the Edit Page screen and enclose the desired text with a <mark> highlighted text here </mark> tag:

 

Full production release notes for the October 6 release are available on the Canvas LMS Community.

The next Canvas release will be deployed on Saturday, October 27, with release notes available Monday, October 15.

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September 15 Canvas Release

Posted on September 19, 2018 | Leave a comment

Canvas is updated every third Saturday with new features and fixes. The Macomb CTL will post highlights from the production release notes and related content to our blog at ctl.emacomb.com.  Please contact us at ctlsupport@macomb.edu if you have any questions about Canvas releases. 

September 15 Release

Please view the New Feature Screencast for a video demonstration of the updates in this release.

Bulk Accept for Moderated Grading
  • This change affects only courses using the New Gradebook with Moderated Grading
  • The moderator can choose to accept all grades by a grader for all assignments in which that grader is the only grader for the student
  • Students with submissions graded by more than one grader will still need to be individually approved by Moderator

Moderated grading bulk accept

 

Last Date Attended in Student Profile
  • Instructors may now note the final date of attendance in a student’s Profile page
  • The date cannot be deleted once added
  • Allows instructors to easily see the last date of on-ground attendance from each student’s Profile page

Last date attended

 

Export All SpeedGrader Comments as PDF

  • Click the Download Submission Comments link in the SpeedGrader sidebar to generate a PDF containing all comments for the submission
  • Allows easy exporting, sharing, and printing of comments
  • Not available for muted assignments

 

Full production release notes for the September 15 release are available on the Canvas LMS Community. 

 

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Canvas Production Release: July 14

Posted on July 17, 2018 | Leave a comment

Canvas is updated every third Saturday with new features and fixes. The Macomb CTL will post highlights from the production release notes and related content to our blog at ctl.emacomb.com.  Please contact us at ctlsupport@macomb.edu if you have any questions about Canvas releases. 

July 14 Release

Please view the New Feature Screencast for a video demonstration of the updates in this release.

 

Anonymous Moderated Grading
  • Requires enabling by Canvas admin  – contact CTL if interested
  • Anonymous Grading – graders are unable to view students’ names
  • Moderated Grading – instructor can set assignment submissions to be reviewed by one or more graders, and which grade should be made final
  • Please see the official Canvas documentation of this feature for complete details and discussion

Anonymous Moderated Grading

Instructor sees anonymous students and graders, with option to choose final grade

Anonymous and moderated

Assignment submissions can be moderated, anonymous, or both.

 

Non-Scoring Rubrics
  • Must be enabled by a Canvas admin – contact CTL if interested
  • Create a rubric without point values to promote learner engagement and interaction with ungraded activities
  • See the official feature documentation for further details

Non scoring rubric in Speedgrader

Example of instructor view of non-scoring rubric within SpeedGrader. Points column is used for verbal feedback.

 

Self-registered Courses: Pair Students with Observers
  • Observer does not need to know student’s username or password
  • Student can click Pair with Observer button to generate a six-digit code to share with their intended Observer (most often a parent, mentor, or guest) who enters the code in their own User Settings.
  • Please see the official Canvas document on the Observer role for more information on its permissions and restrictions.

Pairing code button

 

Full production release notes for the July 14 release are available on the Canvas LMS Community. 

 

Future Updates

The next production release is scheduled for Saturday, August 4. Please see the Canvas Releases page for Production Release Notes, available on Monday, July 23.

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Canvas Updates April 2018

Posted on April 11, 2018 | Leave a comment

Let’s get caught up with some of the recent Canvas updates and take a look at what’s to come. The most recent Canvas production release was March 31 and contains several small updates:

  • DocViewer now allows users to comment on annotations, even if they are not the author of the annotation. This is useful for students adding questions to specific comments by instructors.

  • DocViewer offers three options for line thickness for Free Draw annotations:

  • If you are using TurnItIn, you may edit the language of the Similarity Pledge seen by students, or to adjust when the students see their originality score: immediately, after grading, after the due date, or never:

Please see the New Feature Screencast video below, or the Production Release Notes, for additional information.

The previous Canvas release (March 10) allows students to comment on course Announcements. When editing your Announcement, please check the checkbox if you would like students to be able to comment. Comments are off by default.

More information on the March 10 release can be found in the Production Release Notes and the New Feature Screencast.

As always, please contact the Macomb Center for Teaching and Learning at 586-226-4774 or ctlsupport@macomb.edu if you have any questions about improving learner engagement and interaction in your courses, or if you would like to schedule a one-on-one professional development session on any of a number of topics related to online learning.

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Canvas Updates January 2018

Posted on January 10, 2018 | Leave a comment

Welcome back to a new year and a new term. The Macomb CTL is here to support you in developing productive and rewarding courses for your students.

Let’s take a look at the Canvas releases of January 6 and February 3.

The New Gradebook

The major change is that the New Gradebook is now available for instructors to turn on in your courses. This can be done from the Settings page in the left-side course navigation menu. Then click on the Feature Options tab to see the New Gradebook toggle switch (see image below).

Some of the differences in the new gradebook include:

  • New menus for more settings and sorting options.
  • Late and missing flags with automatic deduction policies.
  • More filtering options.

new gradebook

Do be aware that if you turn the New Gradebook on and then turn on automatic grading for late or missing assignments, you will not be able to return to the “old” Gradebook unless you deactivate the late/missing automatic grading policies.

We invite you to test out the New Gradebook and familiarize yourself with its look and feel before it permanently replaces the current gradebook. We’ll continue to update you well in advance of the launch date as we get more information from Canvas. The New Gradebook will officially launch in the second quarter of 2018. At this point, the old (current) Gradebook will be retired.

More information about the New Gradebook can be found at:

Additional January 6 Updates

Please see the New Feature Screencast for a video demonstration of the updates in the January 6 release:

The Release Notes contain a complete documentation of the release.

One notable update is the ability to add extra credit points to your rubric criteria in SpeedGrader.

Rubric extra points

You may find this method useful for adding extra credit to assignments that use rubrics.

Additional January 27 Updates (delayed to Feb 3)

See the screencast of new features below, and also see the full documentation in the Production Release Notes. 

 

There’s also a change in the DocViewer mode of SpeedGrader. Now you can make free-floating annotations anywhere on the page, with either a white or transparent background.

Docviewer Free Text

The next Canvas release after February 3 will be February 17, and it can be previewed on the beta server starting February 5.

We wish you the best for the Winter semester. Please contact us at 586-226-4774 with any questions you may have, and don’t forget to look over the CTL Winter 2018 Professional Development booklet for any workshops that may interest you.

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Canvas Update December 9

Posted on December 12, 2017 | Leave a comment

Canvas was updated to a new version on Saturday, December 9. Here we’ll highlight some of the noticeable changes.

First, you’ll see a new Move Contents menu item under the Assignment Group Settings menu:

New Move Contents option for the assignment group Settings menu

Selecting this option will bring up a sidebar menu where you may specify the Assignment Group where you’d like the assignments moved.

Move Content option with drop-down placement menus

This is analogous to the Move Contents function which was recently added to the Module Settings Menu:

Module settings menu

You can still use the dots on the leftmost side of the module item or assignment to drag and drop individual items within and between modules.

Another update is that the student Groups page will now show the “inactive” label for any inactive students.

Groups inactive status

Previously, you would have to view the People page to identify inactive students. Students can be inactive for a variety of reasons such as no show, drop, or unpaid tuition, and typically are set as inactive at the SIS level (Datatel/Colleague.) With the inactive status now viewable on the Groups page, you can more quickly identify and remove inactive students from Groups.

This change only affects instructor view – student view does not show inactive students.

Watch the New Feature Screencast for a walkthrough of these changes:

Full release notes are available on the Canvas site. The next beta release will be available on December 18 (see Macomb Canvas beta server), and the next official production release will be on January 6.

The Center for Teaching and Learning has also released the Winter 2018 Professional Development Brochure. We have a full lineup of workshops, courses, and Lunch & Learns prepared for the new semester, so please look over the booklet to see what interests you. Printed copies should be available in early January.

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Canvas Production Release – October 7

Posted on October 3, 2017 | Leave a comment

Get ready for the new Canvas release, which premieres on Saturday, October 7. As always, you can preview the release before this date on the Canvas beta server.

The main update is the missing and late assignment labels have been removed from the student-facing submission details and Grades page. These labels were introduced in August and caused some confusion among students and debate among instructors on the definition of a “missing” assignment and the level of control instructors had over these labels. Instructors’ SpeedGrader view has not changed and will still show missing and late labels for online assignments.

Another new feature is the option to enter point ranges for the criteria of your rubrics. This option can be activated by clicking the Range checkbox under a criterion:

Rubric Range Checkbox

Rubric criterion ranges have also been available in Blackboard, and allow more flexibility and precision in assigning points to rubric-graded assignments.

Please see the Production Release Notes for a full description of all updates and bug fixes.

The New Feature Screencast gives a video presentation of the above changes:

The next Canvas production release will arrive on October 28 and can be previewed in beta mode starting October 16.

Please contact The Macomb CTL at 586-226-4774 if you have any questions about Canvas or other instructional technologies. We still have plenty of on-ground and online workshops lined up for the Fall term, so please see our Professional Development brochure and sign up for one today!

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