Canvas Updates – August 2015

Lots of new features have been added to Canvas recently that you may want to explore.

• Differentiated Assignments – You can now assign assignments to different sections AND individuals or groups of students and have different due dates.  This is helpful if you have a student that needs an extension for an assignment or if you want to assign different things to different sections or groups of students.
• Repeating Events on the Calendar – Do you like to list items on the course calendar that repeat each week?  Now you can!
• Feeds – Would you like your students to be able to easily read content from blogs that either they each create or from experts in field?  You can add the RSS feed for any blogs that you would like via the Feeds button in the course navigation menu.
• Class Notebook – Would you like your students to easily be able to collaborate with each other on a project without having to login to a Google Doc or other collaboration tool outside of Canvas?  This may be a way to accomplish your goal.  Class Notebook is a special OneNote (from Office 365) that allows students to have a private space between you and the student (similar to a journal, but much more fully-featured), a whole class location where everyone can collaborate and share content, and a space for the instructor to post content that is viewable, but not editable by students.
• OfficeMix – This is a free plug-in for Microsoft Powerpoint that can also be used outside of Canvas to create screencasts, annotated and interactive Powerpoints with assessment.  If you integrated an OfficeMix into Canvas, though, you can integrate the assessment feature within the OfficeMix Powerpoint right into the Canvas gradebook.  Have you wondered if students actually watched your recorded PPT lectures?  This tool could help you find out!
• Canvas Badges – Badging is popular right now as a way to showcase mastered skills in a more tangible way.  You can add a badge to a module and design what it will look like and what criteria needs to be met for the student to earn the badge.  Then, the instructor can view which students have earned the badge.  If you like competency-based learning, this is a way to implement and measure competencies.
• Atomic Learning – Add Atomic Learning videos or assessments as Assignments to a Module (via External Tool) and they can be added automatically to the Canvas gradebook.