Now that Fall Semester 2020 is over, you may have some questions about how the Canvas Grade Book is organized. Importing assignments and adding new assignments ad hoc may have you and your students scratching their heads on what grade they are going to be awarded in their transcripts. Let the CTL experts show you how to organize everything for the optimal student experience. There will be a total of 4 sessions on these dates and times:
Monday Dec 7, 2020 at 10:30am Monday Dec 7, 2020 at 2:30pm
Wednesday Dec 9, 2020 at 10:30am Wednesday Dec 9, 2020 at 2:30pm
Hosted by James Bowles and Jeffrey Anderson
All sessions will be conducted via Webex via this link: https://maricopa.webex.com/meet/jbowles1. Just pick a session from those listed above and click on the Webex link to join.
What’s an Unconference? Conferences are about presentations but an Unconference is about conversation…conversations around topics you choose. So, we won’t create the schedule – you will! Tell us what you want to talk about and we’ll find someone to facilitate that conversation OR better yet – tell us what topic you are willing to facilitate a conversation around. We are all busy getting ready for this upcoming year and all faced with many of the same challenges…we have much we can share and discuss so let’s get together and talk! What do you want to talk about? Tell us! Then join the conversation on Wednesday August 14, 2019 in the CTL.
Canvas has released a New Conversation Inbox to make it easier for students and instructors to communicate as easily and intuitively as possible. The New Conversation is a beta feature that you can opt into. To try the new interface, from the question mark on the far right side of the inbox, choose Try New Conversations from the menu.
The new interface is cleaner and clearer to navigate behaving more like email. Some of the new and improved features are:
a new composition window in the middle of your screen
course labels for messages to filter recipients by course
subject lines for messages
message search by user name
quicklinks to compose or sort from messages
customizable course drop down menu to organize inbox messages
Canvas is on a 3-week update-release cycle. The beta release notes for this next cycle were available on 9/23, production notes will follow on 9/30 with the release and documentation to follow on 10/5. For information about Canvas updates follow the release page.
Recent Updates
Group Assignments
Managing Group Assignments has just gotten easier. When downloading a group assignment, Canvas will download ONLY one copy of each group submission. In addition the assignment file name will include the group name making it easier to identify. Comments and re-uploads of group assignments will be sent to each member of the group making it more efficient to provide valuable feedback. These group assignment options do not apply if instructors choose to assign grades to each student individually.
Quiz Regrade
Instructors can now edit quiz questions and tell Canvas to update grades for students who have already taken the quiz. When changing the answer on a multiple choice or true/false quiz question for quizzes in progress, instructors will have one of four additional options:
Award points for both corrected and previously correct answers (no scores will be reduced)
Only award points for the corrected answer (some students’ scores may be reduced)
Give everyone full credit for this question
Update question without regrading
Canvas Conferences – Recording Feature Available!
Canvas now offers a free tier of BigBlueButton conference hosting to all customers. As part of this plan, conferences can be recorded and will be available for 14 days after the conference is completed. This free conference tier also provides users with the latest features of BigBlueButton which include:
Instead of grading quizzes student-by-student, instructors will be able opt to grade quizzes by quiz question. This will make it easier in grading essay and short answer quiz questions when the rest of a quiz is self-grading. This new feature will be the first of several planned improvements to SpeedGrader™. Question grading will be an opt-in feature. Learn more about this and other upcoming features.
To try question grading and other upcoming features, login to the MCCCD Canvas Beta Environment at http://maricopa.beta.instructure.com with your MEID and MEID Password.
Remember that the Beta environment is where Canvas tests out new features without interfering with the production or live software. If the tests go well the features are added to the production version of Canvas. You can interact with your course in Beta to see how upcoming changes may look and feel when released in production.
Did You Know?
New Canvas Tutorials Available
Canvas has released some new and exciting training videos.
New Instructor Videos
The Instructor overview course video is designed for people who are new to Canvas and want to get started. The concepts are presented in the order that new users often have questions about. Student Videos
Canvas is continuing to update the student orientation video series this week. Look for one or two new videos everyday.
Canvas Guides
Canvas continues to expand its library of online guides for assisting students and instructors with Canvas features. The guides are organized by feature for example Assignments, Quizzes, Conversations, etc. Topics are presented as common questions and a search feature makes it easy to find a guide on a particular subject. The guides include both written step-by-step instructions as well as illustrations. The topics are broken down into manageable bite size lessons.
CanvasLIVE is a free webinar series designed to give Canvas users additional training and an opportunity to share their knowledge with the community. Each session includes a brief tutorial on a Canvas tool or feature, focused demonstration, and a short Q&A with Canvas experts.
Upcoming Sessions:
10 Things Instructors Should Know About Assignments, Thursday, September 26 9:00am MDT (Register) Canvas assignment activities (a.k.a. graded activities) can come in the form of quizzes, discussions and assignments. When creating assignments for your class, you have many options from which to choose. This session will address the 10 things you should know about assignments. Facilitator: Biray Seitz, Instructure
Open Q & A on Assignments, Thursday, September 26, 2:00pm MDT (Register) This session is a Q & A related to assignments. A Canvas trainer will address any questions related to the assignment tool in Canvas. Facilitators: Canvas Trainers
4 Ways Rubrics Can Enhance Student Feedback, Tuesday, October 15, 9:00am MDT (Register) Rubric is an assessment tool for communicating expectations of quality. They are a way to set up custom or Outcome-based assessment criteria for scoring. This session will address ways to set up and administer rubrics in your course in an effort to enhance student feedback. Facilitator: Biray Seitz, Instructure
Mark your calendar for our 2nd Annual Fall Tech & Teach week October 21 – 25, 2013. The Fall Tech & Teach fest is a week of activities to support teaching & learning at MCC. The week will consist of sessions, discussions and other events that address excellence in education, technology, teaching and learning.
