Author: boyce.126

Hiding the Nearpod Navigation Link in Carmen

Many of you may have noticed a new navigation link on the left side of your Carmen courses called “Nearpod.” For those who use Nearpod in their classrooms, this may be a great addition to your course. However, if your students don’t need the Nearpod navigation link, there is an easy way to hide it.

The Nearpod navigation link is currently showing by default on the left-sided navigation on all College of Nursing Carmen courses, but it can be hidden if it is not necessary for your course.

 

If you want to hide this navigation link, the first step is to click “Settings.”

 

Next, click the “Navigation” tab.

 

Here, you can see that there are two sections where navigation links can be sorted. The top section is for navigation links that you want to be viewed by students. The bottom section is for navigation links that you want to hide from students. Since Nearpod is in the top  section, it is currently able to be viewed from the student perspective.

 

Left click on the Nearpod box and drag it down to the lower set of navigation links. Notice the note in the Nearpod box now, “Page disabled, wont appear in navigation.” This verifies that students will no longer be able to see this navigation link.

 

Scroll to the bottom of the page and click “SAVE.”

 

The Nearpod navigation link is now hidden and will no longer show up on the left navigation menu.

You can hide any of the unused or distracting navigation links in your Carmen course using the method described above. If you have questions or need assistance with your navigation links in Carmen, contact the CON IT team.

Multiple Choice vs. Multiple Answer

The “Quizzes” tool in Canvas is a easy way to allow students to take a quiz or survey online. Not only is this feature easy to use, it also comes with a large number of  features to customize a quiz to fit your exact needs. You can make it a quiz or a survey, a graded or a practice quiz, and even add a variety of question types such as matching and true/false.

With 12 different question types to choose from, there may be some confusion as to which question type does what. Two very similar sounding types are “Multiple Choice” and “Multiple Answer.” Although they sound the same, they produce very different types of questions. Below is a tutorial on how each of these question types work.

Multiple Choice vs. Multiple Answer tutorial

Go to the quizzes tab in Canvas and select “+ QUIZ.”

 

Select the “Questions” tab.

 

Select “+ NEW QUESTION.”

 

Here you can select which type of question you want. In this tutorial, we will select “Multiple Choice.”

 

Type your quiz question into the text box.

 

Type your possible answers into the texts boxes.

 

Select “UPDATE QUESTION.”

 

Select “+ NEW QUESTION” again. This time instead of selecting “Multiple Choice,” we are going to select “Multiple Answers.”

 

Note the warning above the text box. “This question will have a checkbox next to each answer and the student must select ALL the answers you mark as correct.”  Do not select this question type if you only have one correct answer in your question. For questions with only one correct answer, use “Multiple Choice.” For questions where you want the student to select more than one correct answer, use “Multiple Answer.”

 

Type your quiz question into the text box.

 

To turn a “Possible Answer” into a “Correct Answer,” click the arrow next to the answer. Notice if you were in a “Multiple Choice” question, the “Correct Answer” would simply move to that question row. You cannot have more than one correct answer in “Multiple Choice.”

 

Type in your possible answers into the text boxes. Notice since a net and volleyball are both needed for a volleyball game, both answers are marked as correct.

 

Select “UPDATE QUESTION.”

 

This is what the quiz questions will look like from the student perspective. Notice “Multiple Choice” questions have circles (also called radio buttons) next to the answers while “Multiple Answer” questions have squares (also called checkboxes).

If a student sees a question with squares (checkboxes) by the answers, they will assume more than one answer choice is possibly correct and can choose more than one answer. This circle and square convention holds true across quizzes and survey created in many different applications, including Qualtrics, SurveyMonkey, and the NCLEX.  This is why it is important to only use “Multiple Answer” questions on your quizzes if you want the student to believe that more than one answer may be correct.

 

Notice “Multiple Choice” questions will only allow the student to select one answer while “Multiple Answer” questions will allow the student to select several answers.

Taking Notes in Nearpod

Nearpod is a interactive classroom presentation tool that can help students become more engaged in the classroom. Not only is this tool great for professors who want their students to experience more active learning through presentations containing polls and quizzes, but it also contains features to make the classroom setting less stressful for students.

One of these features is the note-taking component. With this component, students will be able to save all of the slides in a lecture, along with extra notes they can add to each slide, to either their email or Google Docs. This will enable students to pay more attention to what their professor is saying in lecture instead of scrambling to re-type each slide in their notes. This way, the student will have all the necessary information from the lecture slides, and have the time to type out extra notes that the professor may express verbally.

How to Capture Your Notes in Nearpod

When in a Nearpod presentation, click the arrow in the upper right hand corner.

 

Click the option that says “Notes.”

 

You will now be able to type extra notes in the grayed-out bar at the bottom of the screen.

This is an example of notes being typed out under the slide.

 

When the lecture is over, make sure to click the “Share” tab in the lower right hand corner in order to save your notes.

Now, you can either send the notes to your email or to your Google Drive.

 

If you send the notes to your email, it will download as a Word document. This is how your saved notes will look. They will contain all the slides, and any additional notes you added to a slide will appear under the slide.

Do you have questions about how to take notes in Nearpod? Email CON-S-help@osu.edu.

Carmen vs. Canvas

This year, OSU has gone through a major change with the evolution of Carmen to Canvas. As with any redesign, it is important to find out how people are responding to the changes to see what improvements, if any, need to be made. I interviewed two first-year students and two second-year students to see what they like, and dislike, about Canvas.

The second-year students generally like the old Carmen system compared to the new Canvas system. The common theme seems to be the old system was easier to navigate. Multiple people told me Canvas has too many tabs compared to Carmen, which had one main tab called the Content tab. They also said it was less challenging to view grades, look at upcoming events for classes, and turn in assignments last year in Carmen. However, they did like that Canvas separates each course so that they are independent of each other. Students can now pick a class and view the assignments for that one class individually, contrary to Carmen that combined all of the assignments from every class into one area. One friend even marveled at the usefulness of the announcements/discussions/assignments/files icons located on the front cover of every course.

My first-year friends tended to have more positive things to say about Canvas. They said the system is pretty easy to use and they haven’t had many problems learning how to navigate it. The parts they like best about Canvas are the announcements tab and the calendar. They said the announcements section is an easy way for them to find updates and important e-mails about their classes.  When I asked them what their favorite part about Canvas is, they said the calendar tab. The calendar tab shows when assignments are due throughout the week, which allows them to manage their time more efficiently. This opinion contrasts with the second-year students who said they dislike the calendar tab because it is more confusing than the upcoming events tab in Carmen. The only complaint the first-year students have about Canvas is that their teachers sometimes struggle with the system, resulting in assignments, or even whole courses, not being posted.

Since the first year students have never fully been exposed to Carmen before, it seems they have not had a hard time adjusting to the new system. Being a first-year student myself, I would pick Canvas over Carmen because that is what I am most familiar with and I can’t personally compare the pros and cons of each system. Since the second-year students have had to make the adjustment to a new system, it is understandable why they would prefer Carmen because it is what they are most comfortable with.

Both the first-years and the second-years agree that the new Canvas system is better with regard to technology. They really like the convenience of the Canvas mobile app, which the old Carmen system did not have. With continual practice, I believe everyone will adapt to the new Canvas system and see it as a positive step forward in learning technology at OSU.