Recent Updates to Canvas

Most of the recent updates to Canvas have been "enforcements" of previously released features (meaning now you have to use them.)

One change has to do with rubrics, however. Previously located within the Outcomes section of each course, they have been moved to the Course Navigation Menu.

This allows faster access to rubrics and creates a more intuitive workflow. Rubrics in Canvas are increasingly important as more classes switch to hybrid, Hy-Flex, or fully online modalities, as they both simplify the grading process and help provide feedback to students.

There should be more updates coming in August, so keep visiting this space to learn more!

Kaltura Video Quizzes

Many instructors use Kaltura videos to convey course content. But did you know there's a way to check if students are watching the videos and absorbing the content?

Kaltura gives content creators the opportunity to add pop-up quizzes to their videos. These quizzes can even be integrated with Canvas's grade book.

From Kaltura's Knowledge Center: "Video quizzes are created and edited using the Kaltura Video Editing Tools Quiz Creator. The Quiz Creator enables you to create an unlimited number of multiple choice questions with 2-4 optional answers per question." You can add these questions at any point in the video, and the video will continue after the viewer answers the question. 

For an overview of how to add video quizzes to Kaltura, this video from Virginia Commonwealth University's ALT Lab is a great resource:

You can also find more information on how to create Kaltura video quizzes in the Kaltura Knowledge Center. They have a great tutorial on how to integrate the quiz answers with the Canvas grade book as well.

How to Use the Lightboard

ESU has a Lightboard available for faculty and students to use. Put simply, a Lightboard is a glass chalkboard that can be used to record instructional videos that include notes or drawings, all while facing your audience, for a more personal, familiar approach to online lecture.

Made of a 4x8 foot sheet of heat-tempered PPG Starphire architectural glass, enclosed in a lighted frame, the glass is lit internally from all edges, causing neon markers to glow when used on the glass's surface. The recording studio it's housed in automatically flips whatever is written on the back of the glass, so there's no need to know how to write backwards.

Check out this short introductory video (~1 minute) by Lightboard creator Michael Peshkin below:

As Mr. Peshkin states, this type of tool works really well for those who do a lot of drawing or calculations by-hand or need to overlay a fixed object with text during a lecture.

The main drawback of the Lightboard is that the neon markers you have to use to create the glowing text do take a bit more elbow grease to erase. It's not possible to erase as you go like with a standard whiteboard. Also, if you have any text on your shirt, it will appear backwards in the completed video. Otherwise, it's a breeze to use.

The studio that contains our Lightboard is available to students and faculty between eight a.m. and five p.m. on any weekday that the University is open. To reserve the studio, go to our booking website and select Book It. Enter your name, the time and date you would like to reserve the room, and for how long you would like to use the room.

The Lightboard studio is sanitized between each user and the board is cleaned. Due to social distancing policies, the room is only suitable for one person at a time.

Captions in Zoom

Accessibility continues to be an important focus in the abrupt transition to distance education and communication. While our Zoom accounts allow us to enable audio transcripts of meeting recordings, Learning Technologies wants to take this opportunity to make you aware of the pros and cons of this transcription.

The setting to enable transcriptions of recorded meetings can be found by opening your Zoom client, clicking the settings cog in the upper right corner, selecting Profile from the left hand menu, and then choosing View Advanced Features.

 

 

Image of Zoom window, with arrows pointing to the settings cog and the profile menu option

Once in your options, select Recordings and then look for the Audio transcript option.

Image of Zoom settings window with audio transcript box checked

As you can tell, my audio transcript option is checked. Now we get into the pros and cons.

Zoom uses AI to add captions to their meeting recordings. AI captions are a great start, but frequently get their captions wrong (for example, I was watching a Pride and Prejudice video on YouTube and the captions were talking about Bruce Wayne. Might be an interesting crossover!)

So the Zoom captions are better than nothing, but not by much. If it's a meeting you're recording just to have a record of it, this type of transcription might be okay. But if it's a lecture you're recording and you want it to be accessible to students, then Zoom's AI is not going to cut it. Also, no one will be able to see the captions while the meeting is ongoing; these captions are only available after the meeting is completed.

Here is where you have a few options. Learning Technologies is piloting a new program called Otter.AI which provides real-time AI captions in Zoom meetings. Again, this is AI captioning, so it's not always 100% accurate, but it's a bit better than the Zoom captions. These captions aren't added to the video itself but are opened in another window. Again, this is better than nothing, but some users report that having to switch their view between the Zoom window and the transcript window to be less than ideal.

So what if you're recording a lecture using Zoom and want to make sure your captions are spot on for accessibility purposes, your best bet is to use Kaltura. Its AI captions are a lot better and you have the opportunity to edit the caption file to make it match up 100% with what you actually said (no Bruce Wayne here!)

The trick here is to turn off the Zoom captions before you record, if you plan to use the Kaltura captions. Zoom captions "bake into" the video before it transfers to Kaltura, meaning you can't remove the Zoom captions and replace them with the more accurate Kaltura captions. To turn them off, follow the steps above.

So there you have it! Captioning in Zoom is doable, but how you do it depends on the end result you want. Once you've done it a few times, it should be a pretty simple process but, as always, contact Learning Technologies if you have any questions!

Updates to Zoom Meetings

It's pretty much impossible to escape Zoom these days and the company is always working to increase the security of their meetings. This is why Zoom has announced it will start requiring either meeting passcodes or waiting rooms for all Zoom meetings starting July 19th September 27th.

If you are interested in learning more about how to enable a passcode in Zoom, view their support article on passcodes.

If you are interested in learning how to enable a waiting room, view their support article on waiting rooms.

As always, please reach out to Learning Technologies if you have any questions about this change!