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New Announcements
Reminders
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New Announcements
Take a Workshop, Get Better at Canvas
OAT is pleased to offer a week-long series of workshops that will get you comfortable using Canvas, the university's primary LMS for course web sites and online teaching. Even instructors with some experience using Canvas can benefit from reviewing the basics and maybe learning something you didn't know the first time!
Five sessions will be offered. Each lasts about one hour and will be held on Zoom. Recordings will be available for anyone who cannot attend live. Simple and free registration is required to aid organizers in planning.
1. Your Canvas Account + Modules: Learn to manage and customize your Canvas account and take a first look at organizing a course by adding files and links to Modules.
Monday, August 7 @ 11 am (registration required)
2. Communicating on Canvas + Ally: Learn about announcements, emailing your class, creating content and links using the Rich Content Editor, as well as how to improve the accessibility of course materials using Ally.
Tuesday, August 8 @ 11 am (registration required)
3. Canvas Quizzes (Classic & New): An introduction to creating quizzes in Canvas. Primary attention will be given to the Classic quiz engine with a brief look at the New quiz engine.
Wednesday, August 9 @ 11 am (registration required)
4. Assignments & Rubrics & Speedgrader, Oh My!: Learn how to build a graded assignment and create a rubric that will be applied using Speedgrader. This session will also show you how to organize course activities to use a weighted grade book.
Thursday, August 10 @ 11 am (registration required)
5. Canvas Potpourri: Discussions, grade book management, tracking attendance, creating custom links, closing courses and handling incompletes.
Friday, August 11 @ 11 am (registration required)
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Canvas Enhancement Workshops
Specialized tools are available to enhance Canvas and improve teaching and learning in an online environment. The tools presented in this series have been purchased by the university and are fully supported by OAT staff.
Five sessions are offered via Zoom, and each lasts about 90 minutes. Simple and free registration is required to help organizers plan.
1. VoiceThread: VoiceThread offers a highly flexible and interactive way to create and engage with multimedia content. Generate social presence in asynchronous online courses.
Monday, August 7 from 1-2:30 pm (registration required)
2. Discussions Plus: Create multiple due dates ("milestones") within discussions, easily add video posts with closed captions, easily create private student journals.
Tuesday, August 8 from 1-2:30 pm (registration required)
3. Padlet: A digital bulletin board application used for curating media and generating collaborative learning.
Wednesday, August 9 from 1-2:30 pm (registration required)
4. Hypothesis: Place active discussion right on top of course readings via annotation and enable students and teachers to add comments and start conversations in the margins of texts.
Thursday, August 10 from 1-2:30 pm (registration required)
5. Enhancements Potpourri: Panopto, Turnitin, Respondus Lockdown Browser
Friday, August 11 from 1-2:30 pm (registration required)
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Respondus Lockdown Browser Survey
Do you rely on Lockdown Browser for online quizzes? OAT and OIT periodically evaluate usage of the tools they provide for instructors, and hearing from instructors about usage of Lockdown Browser is an important part of that process.
>> Take the Survey <<
Thank you!
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Reminders
Canvas enhancement: Submit assignment file on behalf of a student
In Canvas assignments, it is now possible for an instructor to submit a file on behalf of a student. This feature is available automatically in every course to the instructor(s). Instructors can submit a single file or multiple files.
How to submit
- Open the Grades page of the course
- Click into the student's cell in the appropriate assignment column and then click the "->" icon to open the details tray
- Click "Submit for Student"
- Choose the file to upload and submit
Note: The instructor's name will be noted as the submitter of the file in the grade details, not the student's name.
Limitations
- Only works with regular Canvas assignments, not Turnitin or other External Tools assignments
- A File Upload submission type must be allowed to submit an assignment on behalf of a student. Other submission types are acceptable in the settings, in addition to File Upload, but File Upload must be an option.
- Instructors cannot type a submission into a text box for the student.
Canvas documentation
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Turnitin and AI Writing Detection Now Available
A preview version of Turnitin's AI writing detection tool is now present as part of Turnitin's standard similarity report. AI writing detection is enabled automatically in all reports and Instructors won't need to make any modifications to their Turnitin work flows or existing assignments. AI checking cannot be disabled at this time.
In addition to tracking sources of similarity among Turnitin's archive of student writing, the amount (e.g. 75%) of writing likely written by AI will also be indicated to the instructor for each submission (see screen shot, right). The AI score is hidden from students.
Importantly, Turnitin's technology does not make a determination or judgement of academic misconduct. It is present merely as another data point for instructors to use in their evaluation of student writing.
Turnitin AI Links
Download the FAQ
What about false positives?
Why you need to include AI writing in your honor code and curriculum
Turnitin information about AI detection
Recording: CSU - Turnitin webinar on AI in academic integrity (also see Google Slides)
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Ally Accessibility Gauges
Ally is the automated accessibility checking tool that is installed within Stan State's Canvas system. This tool makes it easy to spot accessibility issues with your course materials and ensure access for all students. There are two main purposes of the Ally tool:
- Scan every piece of content/document/image in a course and gauge its accessibility. Instructors are then guided through steps to address the accessibility issues. The severity of issues (and the lack of issues at all!) are indicated by a color-coded system of gauges.
- Provide students with alternate formats for most content, and even language translations in some cases. Alternate formats may be PDF versions of documents, spoken audio versions of documents, etc.
Gauge Colors & Access
Ally uses a small gauge icon next to each piece of content or image to represent its accessibility status. The colors correspond to those on a traffic stop light:
The gauges are only visible to instructors. Students never see the accessibility status of an item. Instead, they only see a small "download" icon next to each item that allows them to access alternative formats for the item.
More Information
Learn more about Ally and accessibility.
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Canvas Teacher App
It's the Modern Era™, so everything has an app, even for Canvas instructors. In addition to the app for Students, instructors can install the Teachers app to help manage courses when you're not in front of a laptop or desktop computer.
Use the Teacher app for the following situations:
- Create a course Announcement (will be pushed to students based on their account notification preferences)
- Send a message to a specific student or class (will be pushed to students based on their account notification preferences)
- View your course and/or module content
- Grade submitted assignments and discussion posts
The Canvas Instructor guides have full details on the capabilities of the app (available in the app stores for iOS and Android)
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