Canvas Updates and Enhancements - June 27

Canvas provides us with a detailed screencast for every update, however, we have highlighted information below that we believe faculty may find most beneficial. Here's what you can expect this weekend!

*NEW* Excused Assignments

To excuse an assignment for a student, enter the value of EX in the corresponding Gradebook cell. The Gradebook will reflect that the assignment is excused for the student. Excused assignments are not included in the calculation for a student’s total grade.

Students can also be excused from a Group Assignment; the other members of the group will still be able to view and submit the assignment.

iOS Updates

A Calendar for assignments has been introduced, while both Messages and Quizzes have been updated and improved.

If you have any specific question we would be happy to speak with you directly, please call 413-565-6880 or email us at online@baypath.edu 

Permalinks: https://community.canvaslms.com/docs/DOC-3995 (Web), https://community.canvaslms.com/docs/DOC-3996 (iOS)

Canvas Updates - June 6

Canvas provides us with a detailed screencast for every update, however, we have highlighted the information below that we believe faculty may find most beneficial.

Differentiated Assignments by Individual:

When creating or editing an assignment, instructors can specify whether the assignment should be for everyone in the course or for individual students. Only the student(s) specified in the assignment details can view the assignment. Varied due date functionality remains available for each assignment.

• This feature will be live on July 18.
• When enabled, this feature is available for all assignments: Assignments, Quizzes, and Graded Discussions. 

Student Submission Exports:

On their User Profile page, students can download all of their assignment submissions from Canvas. Submission downloads are for both current and past courses and only include files that were submitted to fulfill an assignment; they do not include any submissions modified by instructors, such as annotated submissions.

• The download also includes submissions for group assignments, even if the submission was made by another student in the group. 
• When the export has finished generating, submissions are downloaded as a ZIP file. 

Permalink: https://community.canvaslms.com/docs/DOC-3803

Mobile Portal for Faculty

Our ITS department has communicated some exciting news recently about the release of our new Faculty MOBILE Portal Site! 

Faculty are now able to log in to a mobile-friendly version of the portal by navigating to my.baypath.edu/go on a smartphone or tablet. Once you go to my.baypath.edu/go, tap on the 'Mobile Faculty Portal Login' link and you will be able to log in to the mobile Faculty Portal.

On mobile portal site, faculty will be able to:

• See an overview of a term's course schedule, along with dates, locations, and times

• Get class listings for each course, along with each student's photo ID (unless they are FERPA-restricted), and email the student(s) enrolled in the course directly

• Enter grades on the portal from the mobile site

• Review advisee information, including advisor's type (for example, WELL, MAJOR, etc.) and email advisees directly

• Search room availability on each campus.

No new login is needed for the mobile portal site; use the same login as you do for the desktop portal site.  You'll still enjoy automatic login to your Bay Path Gmail and the mobile site is accessible via any device on any platform!

There is so much more to see!  Checkout the site by going to my.baypath.edu/go on a smartphone or tablet! 

Please reach out to Jill Cooney (jcooney@baypath.edu) if you have any other questions or feedback!

Snow-Proof Your Class!

"Frozen Sunburst" by Doug Brown is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

Snow days are great opportunities to catch up on reading or to work on that upper-body strength with that shovel... but "accumulating inches" no longer means that you and your students have to sacrifice teaching and learning!  Read on for ideas on how to "snow-proof" your classes!

Creating a "Snow Day Module" in your course can be done in a few steps:

1. Create a module:  The best way to organize material in your Canvas classroom is by using Modules.  You can create a module for a class session, a week, a unit, or a topic.  Read up on Creating a New Module in your own classroom!
2. Add content to the module:  An empty module is like a book with no pages!  Add items to your class module including content pages, online discussions and class assignments.
3. Let students know what to expect:  Finally, be sure you let your students know what your expectations are for the snow day.  You can do this by sending an email or a Canvas message.
   

Check out this Canvas classroom that include a sample snow day module, tips on best practices, a sample content page, assignment, discussion and quiz!  In short, this Canvas classroom has all you need to quickly snow-proof your class!

Short on time?  Download (file) and import (instructions) this module shell into your own course!  It includes a template class overview, discussion and assignment item!  

Remember that Hatch Library (Links to an external site.) allows you 24/7 access to an enormous amount of content including scholarly articles (Links to an external site.), Films on Demand (Links to an external site.), the New York Times and more and you can add directly to your Canvas classroom!

Don't forget, if you need help with any of this, teaching with your iPad, or your favorite teaching and learning with technology topic, the Center for Online and Digital Learning is only an email (online@baypath.edu) away!  Messages are monitored Monday through Friday 8:30a-9:00p and your request will be routed to the appropriate staff member who will be in touch to help!

New & Updated Canvas Features: December 2014/January 2015

Canvas is releasing some new and updated features next week, and we'd like to give you a high-level overview of some of the major enhancements. Following the overview, please watch the New Feature Screencast from Instructure for more information..

• Differentiated Assignments 
• "In Assignments, instructors have the flexibility to differentiate assignments between sections and select which sections are required to complete specific tasks."
• Files Redesign
• "When users filter Conversations by Submission Comments, the name of the course assignment links to the assignment. This link helps users directly access the assignment submission and view any associated attachments that may be part of the submission comment."
• Assignments in Conversations
• "Files has been redesigned for a more improved user experience. The new files redesign allows users to view more details about their files, manage editing permissions, and preview files. In addition, Files is fully accessible for all keyboard users and screen readers."

These updates will roll out on December 20, 2014 and you can click here for more detailed information on all the new and updated features.

Universally Accepted File Formats

As a platform agnostic community, we deal with lots of data coming in from a multitude of sources. And, as it turns out, not all of those sources play nicely together.

I thought it would be best to create a list of universally accepted file formats and compare them to those that are platform specific. This can aid in your assignment requirements via Canvas or even when using via AirPlay in an on-ground classroom.

You can view the list here, and I encourage any questions or comments that you may have!

Permalink: https://docs.google.com/a/baypath.edu/spreadsheets/d/1zD03vNzcmxUg0P8X3ZrU7DwViqMljczjaciSDzc-o3Q/edit?usp=sharing

Icons by Garrett Knoll from The Noun Project

No More Assignments?!

Right on schedule, Canvas is updating some settings for mid-September. Some highlights:


The Assignments link

In preparation for future design enhancements, the Assignment link no longer appears in the upper/top Global Navigation menu. This does not impact student use, as Assignments will still be available from the left-hand navigation menu.

Conferencing

There have been enhancements to the use of audio within the conferencing platform. Users of Firefox and Chrome browsers will see these enhancements, while users of Safari and Internet Explorer browsers will not. There are also some increased moderation controls for faculty.

Functionality has also been improved for recording conferences - view the Release Notes for more information. 

Gradebook

Now users can see regraded events. Specifically, how many changes were made.

Notifications

A history of announcements and notifications for replies. Also - time stamps in messages!

The details for these features have been sourced from Canvas Release Notes for September. If you have any specific question we would be happy to speak with you directly,  please call 413-565-6880 or email us at online@baypath.edu.

Gradebook Total Column Is Moving Up The Street!

The ability to identify struggling students in your course early and often is paramount to their success here at Bay Path. With the September 6^th update to Canvas, you will be able to do that more easily. 

Soon, your Total column will now become mobile allowing you to place it at the beginning.of your Grade Book.  By positioning it as the left-most column, the visual impact is much greater and immediate... you'll be able to easily identify where students are in any given course.

Let us know if this helps you out, or if you would like more information when it's released in a few days.

Chris Gaudreau and Mary Wiseman
Center for Online & Digital Learning

The details for these new features have been sourced from Canvas’ User Guides and Product Release Notes. If you have any specific question we would be happy to speak with you directly, please call 413-565-6880 or email us at online@baypath.edu.

iMovie, YouTube and Canvas

Oh, hello there.

Recently the Center has fielded lots of questions regarding iMovie, YouTube and Canvas integration. Putting together a comprehensive workflow to upload content to Canvas was a focus of mine over the last few days, and you can view it here.

As faculty and staff who use Canvas on a daily basis but have other tasks at hand, the last thing you want to worry about is taking extra time to find that video you uploaded to Canvas and if you are running out of your allotted space. I hope this helps.

Good luck!