March Updates and T3 Turnover

By hadley_n 　

Trimester 3 is Upon Us!

Table of Contents: 

  • End of Term Checklist
  • Setting Up T3
    • Note: new course templates are now available in multiple languages!
    • Curricular Integration Setups
  • Google Assignment Update Reminder
  • Other Updates:
    • Canvas content editor now supports drag and drop
    • Coming Soon: Teachers able to submit on behalf of student (unique case usage)
    • Grade Passback Improvements (Late T3 or beginning S1 2023).
    • ChatGPT Prompts for Teachers!
    • How to get support

End of Term Checklist:

  • When finished with grading, export a copy of your grade book for each class and email them to your registrar. 
    • Go to Grades. Click Export. Click Export Entire Grade Book. Save and upload to an email to your registrar for safekeeping. 
  • Tidy up any grades and comments in Synergy under Report Card- Progress Reports. Be sure to save frequently and to hit Post Grades when finished entering any comments you wish to add. 
  • Incompletes:
    • If you have students that will be receiving an Incomplete, please add them and yourself to the Incomplete section already generated in your course. This section is open by default until April 16th, 2023. If you feel you or your students will need more you can modify the end-dates in the Sections settings of the course or email edtech@4j.lane.edu. More info is found here on how to add yourself and students: Click Here 
    • Note that the Incompletes section will not be auto-loaded onto your Canvas courses until week 2 of T3, so do not worry if you don’t see it right away. This is accomplished via custom scripting and automation and requires that cross-listing (by and large) be completed.
  • Be sure that grades match within Synergy or you have modified Final Grades in Synergy to match and Post Grades. 

*Optional* Export your Canvas course(s) as an IMSCC file. These files can be uploaded to most other LMS providers and give you a hard-copy backup of your course. Note that these files are not editable in their downloaded state. They need to be uploaded to an LMS, like Canvas, to be editable. See here for more information.

Setting Up Trimester 3:

Course shells will populate by the end of this week, March 10th. Students will populate by the end of next week. 

CROSS-LIST

Remember, if you have common preps, it is highly recommended that your cross-list them together. This must be the first thing done prior to building or importing content. 

Cross-Listing Video Here

IMPORTING THE TEMPLATE

If you are using the template, which has weekly modules and dates preset for T3 and need a refresher on how to get content from the Commons, see this video. 

For the first time we now have the template in other languages to better support some of our DLI Programs and WL courses. The template is now available in Spanish and French in addition to English. Next year I hope to add Mandarin and Japanese support as well!

Be sure you are importing the correct language into your course from the commons!

 

 

 

GRADEBOOK SYNC

Synergy Gradebook has received an update, and now, syncing the gradebook between Canvas and Synergy is even easier than before! For a full walkthrough, including step-by-step instructions and videos click here!

IMPORTING PAST CONTENT

You can of course import content from prior years/trimesters into current classes. Keep in mind, it’s best to select the option to “Remove Due Dates” when importing to eliminate the possibility of forcing zeros in the gradebook for missing assignments. 

Importing Video Here

INTEGRATIONS

The following curricular integrations are available in Canvas, they are very helpful in including accessible text options, activities, text-to-speech, and much more! 

Publish your course for students!

Google Assignments in Canvas!🤩

FINALLY!!! A feature teachers have been asking for since the adoption/invention of Canvas. Full Google integrations in Canvas! 

That’s right! The new and improved Google Assignments LTI 1.3 allows teachers to create assignments in Canvas that will automatically distribute Google docs/slides/etc to students, keep them organized, and will now allow teachers to navigate through Canvas to the students’ documents to provide real-time feedback and comments on student work. When students are ready to submit, they can use the Google Assignments LTI to submit directly to SpeedGrader where teachers can provide feedback in Canvas so that students receive notifications and reminders to check that feedback from teachers. Students can resubmit, generate new documents if they delete one on accident, and also tag their teachers in comments within Docs (using the @ feature) that will automatically send an email to the teacher. This feature is available to staff NOW. 

A full video walkthrough is available here. (9 minutes)
In the video you will learn how to create a Google Assignment with the new LTI (learning tool integration) and explore its features. 

Other Updates: 

  • The Rich Content Editor (RCE) in Canvas will now allow teachers to drag and drop content, images, etc directly into it instead of needing to Upload a picture from the desktop each time!
  • Coming Soon!! Teachers will soon be able to ‘submit on behalf of the student’. Meaning you could submit an assignment or mark it as submitted if a student emailed you a doc and you wished to put it in Canvas to grade, etc. 
  • Canvas New Quizzes is available to us! Canvas has very extensive documentation already in place on how to use NQ. Note also that migrating Classic Quizzes to New Quizzes is easily done with one click, and when you are importing content, you can select to migrate your quizzes automatically in the process! Learn more here.
  • In the coming months/next year I hope to better automate our grade passback system. In conjunction with our Synergy team, we are looking to create auto-passback for teachers using a simple Assignments-only grading category, also known as a non-weighted system. ie what is in the Assignments category in Canvas would automatically pass back to Synergy’s Assignments category with no setup required. For those using weights and custom category names, there is still a setup process, but hopefully that will become simpler as well over time. 
  • ChatGPT has been in the news quite a bit, but here is a free pdf on prompts that can help educators with daily tasks. 
  •  To get timely support please email Canvas questions directly to 4jdesktop@4j.lane.edu where they will get routed to relevant individuals to respond to your questions. 

This entry was written by hadley_n, posted on March 7, 2023 at 10:48 pm, filed under Posts. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post. Post a comment or leave a trackback: Trackback URL.

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