Month: July 2018

CPSL Showcase: Designing and Developing the PPE Donning and Doffing Module

In this Clinical and Professional Skills Lab (CPSL) showcase, we take a look at the design and development process of one of the first CPSL learning modules to be created, “Basic Information and Usage of PPE.” We hope that this showcase would give you an idea of what a CPSL learning module is all about, what the process is like, and how Teaching and Learning can help.

Image of Sean in PPE

Image: Sean in PPE

Continue reading CPSL Showcase: Designing and Developing the PPE Donning and Doffing Module →

News from InstructureCon/Carn 2018!

The annual Canvas conference, InstructureCon (nicknamed “InstructureCarn” this year … as in carnival), took place from July 24th to 26th. Here are some of the new features and enhancements announced that I am most excited about, some of which have already been rolled out:

  • Available Now
    • Duplicate entire modules – This has made my workflow significantly more efficient in some cases!
    • SpeedGrader Enhancements including image annotation and comments showing on the same page as source location.
    • Non-scoring rubrics – This is a great feature for mastery-based marking, helping students focus on feedback rather than point values
    • App page view reporting – With all of your pre-clinical students having iPads, this helps with getting more accurate information on the usage of your course resources.
    • Anonymous & Moderated Grading – Did you know that
  • Coming Soon
    • Aug 4th Release:
      • Student Planner / Dashboard List View – This view puts deadlines and to do items front-and-center for students; this view also allows students to add their own to do items! Look out for an update on this from Teaching and Learning soon after release.

        New student dashboard list view

      • Assigning Pages and Ungraded Discussions to student to do – You’ve been able to set module requirements for students to view your content pages; now you can set due dates and help your students remind themselves by putting them on their Planner.
    • SP19 / Now in beta:
      • New Gradebook: This is a redesigned gradebook with additional functionality and a cleaner interface – faster, more informative, easier to customize view and make quick adjustments, and so on. In addition, you are able to set automatically-calculated late and missing assignment policies with the New Gradebook. Let Teaching and Learning know if you would like to explore the new gradebook in your courses!

        Screenshot of new gradebook showing ability to set late and missing assignment policies

  • In Development
    • Analytics 2 with “interactive and actionable charts.”
    • Quizzes.Next – This is a completely redesigned quizzing tool that will come with a new experience as well as additional question and stimulus types. I’m most excited about additional capabilities in question bank management and sharing, as well as ability to tag outcomes to individual questions!
    • More information forthcoming – Rich Content Editor drag and drop, SpeedGrader screen recorder, etc..

Work on AU18 Courses Continues! Easy Early Wins with Great Impact

The Office of Distance Education and eLearning held a focus group with students on their professors’ usage of Carmen, and created a video of the highlights:

In our Places to Start with Great Impact series (Part 1, Part 2), we offered some simple ideas for enhancing your students’ early experiences in your course. Even though July is almost over, it is certainly not too late to implement some of the ideas below – contact us today if you are interested!

  • Build as much of your course (materials) as possible now (in the master): Summer is a great time to build! Master shells are great for getting your course prepared for your students between semesters – you can start your projects (with us!) and/or revisions as we’ve got the shells prepared for a new semester, and you don’t have to worry about accidentally publishing something! As a bonus, Teaching and Learning does a final quality check of the master shells before we publish them to students in the semester shells. If you’d like instructor access to a master shell as a team member, please let your team leads know.
  • Syllabus quiz: This is a great way to make sure that your students review your course syllabus syllabus, and that you are all on the same page regarding course policies and logistics. ODEE describes an implementation in which the quiz is required, and course modules are released only upon passing. This is also a great use case for Top Hat questions, perhaps with bonus points, so your students are incentivized to review the syllabus, and also get an early, low-stakes experience of the tool
  • Course intro video: A short course introduction video can be an invaluable tool that serves multiple purposes: 1) it’s a great opportunity for you to talk briefly about your course, its purpose, why it is important, its structure, and so on; 2) it puts a face to your name; and 3) it can be your students’ first opportunity to get to know who you are as a professional, as an instructor, and/or even an individual from a personal perspective. Creating an intro video is simple with MediaSite; OTL would also be glad to help you with it!
  • Course banner: The latest iteration of the CVM Canvas Template added a banner on the home page that can be customized. We thought this might be a fun place to inject some personality into your course! Here are some examples:VM6550.01 homepage with banner
    VCS7722 homepage with banner
    VM6614.06 homepage with banner

What’s New in Top Hat (JUNE 2018)

Release Notes: June 2018

  • The pages editor has been redesigned to surface frequency-used functionality
  • You can now use Top Hat to keep track of attendance that you take outside of Top Hat
  • Newly available in beta and can be enabled by Top Hat support:
    • Long answer question type
    • Significant figures in the numeric answer question type on iOS

A reminder for additional beta features:

  • Secure Attendance (beta): This feature is available on web, iOS, and Android – it uses the students’ devices to help determine where they are and if they are in proximity with each other. This feature can be enabled under Settings – Secure Attendance Options.
  • Group Questions (beta): This feature can be enabled by Top Hat support. Once enabled, you can put students into groups and assign questions to groups – each student can submit a response, with the final submission of a group being locked in as the group’s submission.

What’s New in CarmenCanvas (JUNE/JULY 2018)

The annual Canvas conference, InstructureCon, takes place from July 24th to 26th. We’re excited for new features and enhancements that will be announced at the conference – stay tuned for another update coming soon!

Web

Release Notes: 6/23, 7/14

For Everyone:

  • You can now create recurring “duplicate” events in the Calendar
  • The Discussions page has been updated with a new design
  • Canvas now displays an error if you try to upload a file exceeding available quota using the Rich Content Editor Content Selector
  • In SpeedGrader, comments now remain on the same page as the annotation
  • Language referring to “wiki” has been updated to “page(s)” for consistency

For Instructors:

  • You can now duplicate entire modules
    • A duplicated module and its contents are set to an unpublished status
    • Classic quizzes (indicated by a rocket icon) cannot be duplicated; a module containing a classic quiz cannot be duplicated until it is removed from the module
  • (This is not a new feature, but did you know that you can do moderated grading in Canvas, in which you can assign multiple graders as well as the grader who can determine the final grade?)
  • You can now create rubrics without point values; previously while you have had the ability to attach a rubric and not use it for grading, the rubric creation process required that you attach point values to the ratings.
  • The menu icon in SpeedGrader has been updated to include “Keyboard Shortcuts” and “Help”.

Canvas Student

Release Notes: 6.3 (iOS, Android)

  • The Rich Content Editor now supports attaching images from User Files
  • Page views in the mobile app are now reported
  • Where permissions are granted, an user can now delete annotations and comments made by others

Canvas Teacher

Release Notes: 1.6 (Android)

  • The app now displays an error message when uploading a file that would exceed the file quota
  • The Pages tool now supports editing page content if a student has been given edit access
  • The Pages tool has been redesigned