This post was created to help guide our PL sessions in early Nov. 2020.
We presented the info in four separate chunks.
1 Personal Professional Learning
There are a bunch of ways to stay up to date with what is going on in the Canvas world. I love a good passive way to learn, a way I can scroll lazily through a feed and have things jump out at me.
Facebook - I do think the official Canvas LMS page is a great place to start. This is one way to have information come to you, no real effort.
YouTube - Check out the official Canvas LMS channel. All the live videos they do on Facebook end up here. Easy to search the Videos or Playlists tab for a ton of great info.
CanvasCon - This was a virtual event a few weeks ago. Many good videos to check out. Most sessions were created and delivered by teachers.
InstructureCon - Scroll down a bit on the page to find all the videos from the 2019 conference. I went and it was amaz. Best conference I have ever been to.
2 Video Feedback
Be honest, did you ever read the feedback a teacher wrote on your paper? I never did. I have seen a ton of papers in recycling bins that looks like kids took a peek at the grade and then discarded them. What if there was a way to leave feedback and get kids to soak in every word?
Check out our Video Feedback page in the Leveling Up course.
Don't believe me? Try it with some of your kids and see.
3 Quizzes
There are 13 different types of questions you can ask in the new quizzes. 12 are pretty common, questions you have seen most of your life. There is 1 question type that is pretty cool, stimulus. It is like the swiss army knife of questions, it can do so much.
I'm not a super fan of the word hack but it draws a lot of attention so here are a few hacks that might save you some time and some are pretty cool.
undelete
Sometimes you might accidentally delete something. Did you know that Canvas holds the last 25 things you deleted from your course?
Go to your home page.
add /undelete to the address.
Click Restore to bring whatever you deleted back.
emoji
Your Canvas modules can look pretty bland but they don't have to. Visit emojipedia and find something to add to the titles. All you need is to copy/paste.
It might be a good idea to always use the same symbols to identify things like study guides, etc. Emojis do not work well for things you sync to SIS. They will sync just fine except in the title of the assignment there will be a few extra question marks, not really a big deal.
Verbs
I saw this on some post, use verbs in your page/assignment titles. It helps key the kids into what they need to do.
Accessibility Checker
This is pretty important, is your page accessible to all users?
Click the little circle with a person in it. On the far right side will pop up the tools to fix your page to make it accessible to all.
New Assignment View
This is a great new enhancement for students. You will need to enable it in each course if you want to use it.
1. Open your course and click Settings.
2. Click Feature Options.
3. Toggle on Assignment Enhancements - Student
Gradebook - message students who...
There are some hidden features in the gradebook that will allow you to message a lot of kids at one time.
Open your grade book and click the ice cream cone on an assignment.
Then click Message Students Who
You will have four different options on how to message a lot of students at one time.
Reorder Modules
It is really important to make it as easy as possible for the kids to find what they need quickly.
Grab the waffle and drag down. While this may seem simple it does have a huge, long-term impact.
Notes in Grade book
Open your course.
1. Open the gradebook and click View.
2. Click Notes.
Click in the field and type a note. Students don't see this, just you.
Filter in the Gradebook
Do you sometimes have a bunch of unpublished assignments showing up in the gradebook? Why not just hide them!
Do you have some of these?
To hide the unpublished assignments, just open your gradebook.
1. Click View.
2. Deselect Unpublished Assignments.
Gradebook Total
Open your gradebook.
Scroll all the way over.
Click the ice cream cone in the total section.
Click Move to Front. Now the total will be right next to their name.
You can also have them listed by score, lowest or highest first.
WHY It is always nice to put a face with a name. Sometimes we need a tiny little reminder of what someone looks like because we don't see them very often. Follow these steps to add/change the image associated with your Google account. HOW Open your email. Click your image. It might just be a blue circle if you have not added something already. Click Change . Find an image you like. Your amazing new image will appear. From now on everyone can put a name to a face!
So I have a PDF and I need to edit it. Here is one method that works pretty well for me. Open Word. Click File . 1. Click Open . 2. Click Browse . 3. Find the PDF you want to annotate. 4. Click Open . Click OK when you see this box. Bam! Your PDF now opens in Word. Note: you maybe have to click Enable Editing at the top of the screen. Finished editing and want to turn it back into a PDF? Click File . 1. Click Save As . 2. Click This PC . 3. Pick a location. I usually save things to my desktop. 4. Click Save as type - and choose PDF. 5. Click Save .
Are you looking to embed an audio clip into a Google Form? Below you will find a list of things you will need ready and a video to walk you through the process. Needed: A single PowerPoint slide. Movie Maker. (Already on your computer.) A Google Form. Watch this video for the steps to follow.
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