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Showing posts with the label canvas

Less Physics Mo Problems

Why am I writing this personal entry? Well, it is not an attempt to gain any sympathy. It attempts to show what is possible if a clear intention and goal serve the learner's needs.  In May of 2022 just near the end of another fantastic school year, I do not remember what happened. But, I was unable to finish the school year and was unable to teach the following year.  Why? On May 21st, 2022, I fell down a flight of 16 stairs (luckily carpeted) from the 2nd to 1st story of our home.  I was found at the bottom of the stairs. I was found foaming at the mouth. This would lead to a 2-month hospital stay which included an induced coma because my seizures would not stop, several rounds of lumbar punctures, and relearning basic physical movements like something as simple as being able to roll in the hospital bed. Simply put, when I was admitted to the hospital, I was diagnosed as being “critically ill.” Please take a moment and read those words: critically ill. They are not terms that are

110 Lab Reports in the Queue

This year I am teaching an overload. That means I’m currently teaching 4 out out 4 blocks each day. With all of this work, my blogging has had to take a backseat. Luckily, they are all the same class. That means that I don’t have to set-up different labs for different classes without a break to do this. The downside to having all the same class is that when students do turn in a lab report for me to grade, I have 110 to grade. In a week where we do 2 labs (not unusual in the block), the amount of work to correct can become quite daunting. I can’t just leave these labs sit in the cloud ungraded because they will pile up quickly. Also, I am all about timely feedback. I want to have labs corrected within 2 days of them being turned in. This post in not monumental, but I wanted to share out how I’ve streamlined my practice to become efficient at grading and feedback by leveraging Google Slides and Canvas LMS. At the start of this school year, I had the intention of incorporating 1 poin

Flipgrid + Canvas LMS BFF

This is an updated post from December 2017 that includes grading in Speedgrader! I am really loving the Flipgrid app in Canvas. Why? It allows students to access class grids right from Canvas without having to share out links or codes. It allows me to create a Flipgrid response as a Canvas assignment. Students can turn in assignments as a Flipgrid response. With Speedgrader in Canvas, I can quickly see who has and hasn’t responded to a Flipgrid just like any other assignment submitted to Canvas. With Speedgrader, I can score assignments from a desktop, laptop, or mobile device. Part 1: Set-up So, I wanted to share out how to easily add it to your canvas course. If the GIFs are too small for you, I created a quick video below. From Setting in Canvas, go to the Apps tab. This sets up a specific Flipgrid for your course. The Flipgrid can then be accessed via the side navigation by you or students. Part 2: Create an Assignment You can ea

Prime Real Estate in Canvas

As I enter my 5th year of using Canvas as an LMS, I’ve come a long way in terms of how I design the look of my course to facilitate simpler and more transparent workflows for my learners. So, I just wanted to give you a quick tour because a lot of what I have learned has come from others sharing out to the greater EdTech community. So, I just want to keep paying it forward. The biggest breakthrough for me is embedding Google Slides into my site pages . It is really a game changer Dashboard First things first. If you haven’t added an image to your course to appear in the dashboard, get on it. It’ll make your course easier to identify and stand out.  This can all be done in the SETTINGS section. In FEATURE OPTIONS, turn on ENABLE DASHBOARD IMAGES FOR CANVAS. In COURSE DETAILS, click on IMAGE to upload or change your current image. You can upload a jpeg.  If you’re interested in creating GIFs instead of just static images, check out this post . Home Page My h

Canvas LMS Flipgrid Integration

I am really loving the Flipgrid app in Canvas. Why? It allows students to access class grids right from Canvas without having to share out links or codes. It allows me to create a Flipgrid response as a Canvas assignment. Students can turn in assignments as a Flipgrid response. With Speedgrader in Canvas, I can quickly see who has and hasn’t responded to a Flipgrid just like any other assignment submitted to Canvas. So, I wanted to share out how to easily add it to your canvas course. If the GIFs are too small for you, I created a quick video below. From Setting in Canvas, go to the Apps tab. This sets up a specific Flipgrid for your course. The Flipgrid can then be accessed via the side navigation by you or students. You can easily create assignment submissions to be Flipgrid responses during assignment creation. Students can easily submit their assignment directly to Flipgrid from the assignment page. Here’s the video compilation of th

InstructureCon 2016 Round 1: Personal Favorites

Instructure, the company behind Canvas Learning Management System, holds a yearly conference called InstructureCon. The primary focus of the conference is use of Canvas by educators.  It is an educator driven conference with two days of breakout sessions and multiple keynotes every day.  Instructure is a super transparent company and has gone as far as posting sessions from the conference online so that all users can benefit from the learning. They have released 19 sessions in the first wave on YouTube.  I’ve watched all the videos and created a playlist of those that I think are most beneficial to educators in K - 12 environments that you can access by clicking here . You may not have time to watch all the videos, so I’d like to give some of my takeaways in attempt to tantalize you to watch the sessions that are relevant to you. The first video in the playlist " Canvas in Elementary School? Yes, You Can!"c reated by Courtney Cohron I wrote about in my last blog post