December Updates to Canvas

There will be some changes coming to Canvas over the winter break that of which we wanted to make our faculty and staff aware. 

Rich Content Editor

Starting after finals week, Canvas will be transitioning all users to the "new" Rich Content Editor (RCE) that has been available as an option for several months. This will change the look of the editor from the classic version to the enhanced version. 

 

Classic version:

 

Enhanced version:

 

 

As you can tell, there are several changes to the enhanced content editor. According to Instructure, the main changes are these:

 

• The Rich Content Editor expands to the full width of the browser and can also be expanded into full screen mode
• The toolbar includes a condensed, more intuitive look
• Toolbar menus are grouped by common icons and interactions
• The content sidebar only displays when linking to other parts of Canvas, accessing Canvas files, or accessing uploaded media
• Image and media additions include drag and drop; images include an Unsplash search and content auto-scaling
• When content in a browser window is long enough to require a scroll bar, the Rich Content Editor menu bar is fixed at the top of the browser window.
• The Keyboard shortcut, Accessibility Checker, and HTML Editor icons have moved to the bottom of the editor next to the word count. Additionally, the Rich Content Editor window can be resized using the Move handle below the window, and the window can be expanded to full screen.

Many of you may have opted to switch to the enhanced RCE earlier in the year. For those who haven't, it will be rolled out to all users over the break, so keep an eye out! For more information on the RCE, scroll through the RCE UI Overview for a breakdown of how each button and menu will function.   

Canvas Push Notifications

We are all frequently being overwhelmed by digital communication these days. Reading emails, getting texts, notifications from apps, all of these can clog up our senses. 

 

According to Instructure, "students spend 89% of their time on native mobile apps and just 11% of their time in mobile browsers, and surveys show students prefer using apps on their smartphones instead of being pointed to mobile websites. In fact, nearly one million students downloaded the Canvas Student App in March and April of 2020 alone." They add that push notifications "appear in a student’s notification tray, where today’s youth check dozens of times daily."

 

In an attempt to help clear some of the noise, Canvas is streamlining its push notifications. These send messages out to students when something happens in their course in Canvas. Starting January 16th, a more condensed version of push notification will be available. These notifications include:

Announcements

• New Announcement
• Announcement Reply

Assignments 

• Assignment Created
• Submission Graded
• Assignment Due Date Changed
• Submission Comment
• Submission Needs Grading
• Submission Comment for Teacher
• Submission Grade Changed
• Assignment Changed
• Annotation Notification
• Assignment Due Date Override Changed
• Peer Review Invitation
• Rubric Assessment Submission Reminder
• Upcoming Assignment Alert
• Annotation Teacher Notification
• Assignment Unmuted
• Quiz Regrade Finished

Events 

• New Event Created
• Event Date Changed
• Appointment Group Published
• Appointment Group Updated
• Appointment Group Deleted
• Appointment Canceled by User
• Appointment Deleted for User

Conversations

• Conversation Message (new conversation or reply)

Conferences

• Web Conference Invitation

Collaborations

• Collaboration Invitation

Conclusion 

As always, if you have any questions about these changes or any other Canvas utilities, please contact our Learning Tech office. We're here to help!

Ten Ways to Increase Online Learning Interactivity

A frequent comment we hear about online learning is that it lacks the interactivity of face to face classes. While this may be true in some ways (online discussion boards often lack the spontaneity of in-class discussions), online classrooms also allow for everyone to have a say, from the quiet student who says little to the most confident and talkative student in the room. 

These interactive types of activities can also serve as assessments that can't be cheated at, unlike more traditional exams. Assessing student learning, fostering interactivity, and preventing academic dishonesty? What's not to love?!

But how can we foster this interactivity? We're glad you asked! 

1. Annotations: Ask learners to annotate a written test or document. This can be done either individually or collectively in small groups. You can use products like Hypothes.is to easily manage these types of assignments.
   
   
2. Collaboration: As students to create documents and presentations together using Google or Office365 suites. To organize larger documents and presentations, they can use collaboration management tools like Slack Messenger, Microsoft Teams, Google Jamboard, and Trello to make sure the group is all on the same page.
   
   
3. Concept Mapping: Have students identify relationships between concepts or networks and then illustrate these relationships by creating a concept map.
   
   
4. Curation: Students can aggregate both visual and textual resources using Google Keep 
   
   
5. Data Visualization: Students can use Google MyMaps to create and annotate maps, or use the US Census's website to create visualizations of data.
   
   
6. Exhibition Creation: You can ask students to create their own virtual museum exhibits using Google Slides or Microsoft PowerPoint.
   
   
7. Peer feedback: Allow students to provide constructive feedback to classmates as a way to show that they understand the material well enough to positively critique others' work.
   
   
8. Portfolio: Students can use the built-in Folio tool in Canvas to create professional-looking portfolios that can follow them into the job market.
   
   
9. Flipgrid: Adding more of a traditional in-class feel to digital discussion boards, this online discussion board adds video and audio feedback for students, as well as the ability to leave text comments. Talk about enriching the online discussion experience!
   
   
10. Teach back: Have students "teach" a lesson in a short video. This demonstrates mastery because you can't teach it if you don't understand it! 

So there you have it! Ten ways to increase interactivity with content and between students in online courses. Do you have your own ways to increase learner interaction online?

Upcoming Zoom Features Announced at Zoomtopia 2020

 

In their quest to improve the videoconferencing experience, Zoom announced a bunch of new features at their recent Zoomtopia event.

More immersive, engaging, collaborative meetings
New immersive backgrounds will allow hosts to set a custom background theme or create layouts that have participant videos arranged within a shared scene, like a classroom. 

 

Additionally, new ways to react to speaker content using animated reactions, such as thumbs up or down, a laughing emoji, a heart, a celebration emoji, and clapping (which will also come with audible clapping sounds.) 

 

 

Closed Captions
Zoom has finally announced that they are launching automatic closed captions as a base feature in Zoom. This comes after significant pressure was exerted on the company for not providing this feature. However, is will only be available in the main Zoom Room, not the breakout rooms, and it will only provide English language captions.

A Richer User Experience
Recently added to Zoom is High-Fidelity Music Mode in addition to background noise suppression. While right now users must opt-in to this service in their settings, Zoom announced that in the near future they plan to utilize AI to turn this mode on automatically when the proper conditions are detected.

AI is at the center of another planned upgrade to the user experience. Using artificial intelligence and natural language processing, Zoom cloud recording will be able to extract key insights from recording transcripts and make it easy to review meeting highlights, without having to watch the entire recording.

An Increase in Zoom Security
Zoom is also adding a video component to their waiting rooms so that hosts can see participants via video before admitting them to their meetings. This new, enhanced security feature will be available early next year and will hopefully put an end to the majority of Zoom bombings.

In other security news, end-to-end encryption of Zoom meetings is being slowly rolled out to both free and paid users. This upgrade will allow Zoom users to host up to 200 participants in an E2EE meeting.

More to Come
As these and other planned upgrades begin to roll out to all users, we at Learning Technologies will keep you updated on their implementation and usage. Keep watching this space!

October Updates to Flipgrid

 

What has changed?

October has brought several changes to Flipgrid. Previously, students could only respond to each other with a newly recorded video. Now students and instructors alike have the ability to leave text responses as well. 

All new Topics will have public comments automatically enabled on them; as an instructor, you can always disable this option in the Default Topics Settings at any time. You can also activate Moderation on these comments, so that they must be approved before being visible to other students. 

It is important to note that private comments are not yet available; however, Flipgrid has hinted that they are coming soon!

Other Updates

If you would like to use Flipgrid but have a large number of students to add to the system, you can now bulk upload student emails to Flipgrid using .csv files. 

For those of you who are music instructors and would like to incorporate Flipgrid into your courses, the company has also added music note stickers for use within students' videos. While not life-changing, it does add an extra layer of fun!

Respondus Announces a Beta-Version of Lockdown Browser

 

With hundreds of quizzes and exams moving to an online format, exam security has been at the forefront of instructors' minds. 

One tool in faculty members' arsenals has been the use of Respondus's LockDown Browser and Respondus Monitor tools. 

Until recently, however, this program did not work with the Chromebooks that so many students are either issued or choose as a less expensive alternative to laptops and PCs. This is changing with Respondus's announcement that they will be rolling out a new Chromebook extension that will allow students to use both the LockDown Browser and Respondus Monitor, the AI portion of Respondus that monitor's students activity during exams. 

Once the license administrator enables the Chromebook extension, instructors will need to do the following to allow for the use of the browser:

1. Go to the LockDown Browser Dashboard within Canvas 
2. Select “Require Respondus LockDown Browser for this exam” 
3. Expand “Advanced Settings” and select “Allow students to use LockDown Browser for Chromebook (beta)” 
4. Save the exam settings for LockDown Browser              

For students to install the LockDown Browser on their Chromebook, they'll need to follow the instructions below:

1. Log into the Chromebook start Google Chrome 
2. Log into Canvas and navigate to the exam that requires LockDown Browser  
3. Select the link for downloading and installing LockDown Browser 
4. From the Chrome web store, select “Add to Chrome” to install the LockDown Browser Extension 
5. Note: during the beta, this extension will only work with quizzes an instructor has enabled for use with LockDown Browser for Chromebook

For more information about this beta release, the following Knowledgebase article provides additional information about the beta release of LockDown Browser for Chromebook, including feature limitations and known issues. This article will be updated periodically during the beta.