How to

Canvas Tip #4- The Redirect Tool

amcdonnell Uncategorized , ,

One of my favorite Canvas “hacks” is using the Redirect Tool app to add features to my course menu.  The Redirect Tool can be found under settings > apps. It’s a curving blue  arrow as seen on the right and it allows you to add any webpage to your navigation menu.

 

(the picture below is from Yale’s tech help site)  Click the picture to see detailed step-by-step directions on how to configure the tool. The FCIT team is also available to help you set this up.

I have used this tool to add links to older course websites before I migrated all my material to Canvas. These days, I use it to link to the history reading packet. I’ve also used it to post a “suggestion box” which allows students to give me feedback on the course via a link to a Google Form. Below is a screenshot of how I have used the tool this year.

Here’s a video showing how to do it.

Viewing Mid-Semester Reports by Homeroom

dcrowley Faculty ,

In order to help you prepare for the Parent Conferences, you can now download or view your advisees Mid-Semester Progress Reports.

TO DOWNLOAD THE ENTIRE HOMEROOM AS A PDF

  1. On the teacher portal, click on your homeroom class.
  2. If you don’t go there automatically, go to the Students tab.
  3. Click the Download Class Reports button on the right side, above the table of students’ names.
  4. In the pop-up box, click the red pdf button next to Progress Report.

That will generate a single PDF file with each of your students’ (current) mid-semester progress report in it.
 TO VIEW IND REPORTS ON SCREEN

  1. Click on Axiom Reports
  2. Select Mid-Semester Reports (By Advisor)
 

Let Google Calendar Suggest A Meeting Time

vschwoebel Faculty ,

Google Calendar’s Suggested Times feature automatically finds an event time that works for all of your invited guests. It’s an often overlooked feature, but can be very powerful and super convenient when you schedule meetings with multiple guests. The Suggested Times feature works best when all guests have an updated Google Calendar, so we recommend keeping your calendar up-to-date with all your daily events.

To use this feature:

1. In Google Calendar, create an event. (Note: The start time is not as important as the duration of the meeting at this stage)

 

2. Add guests and click “Suggested times.” The resulting list will include upcoming times where all participants are available for the duration specified in Step 1.

3. Select the time from the list, then Save.

 

EdPuzzle

amcdonnell Faculty , ,

EdPuzzle 

EdPuzzle should be on your shortlist of essential tools. Why is EdPuzzle essential and so useful?

Simply this, take any video from YouTube or Khan Academy (and other sites) and make it interactive by embedding questions right in the video.

This allows for:

  • self-paced lessons. It lets students move through content they already understand to focus on what challenges them. Students are also able to stop and review content they missed the first time the teacher taught it. 
  • students to ask questions that they too embarrassed to ask in class
  • teachers to easily add images, interactive graphs, websites and comments to a video lesson
  • students to respond to teacher posed questions. There is a useful “big-brother” aspect to this. As a teacher, I can see how many times a student watched a particular segment (or if they watched it at all).  I’ve had students watch segments of a video up to 5 times to answer a particular question. This lets me know if my question is too hard or the concept is too challenging.
  • full integration with Google Classroom.

Take it another step. Tape yourself either during class delivering the content or in advance of class. Now your lesson is archivable and interactive in ways it never was before.

By the way, I rarely go to edpuzzle.com as I usually use the chrome extension to do my edpuzzling. It gives me all the utility I need and saves me some clicks.

To learn everything you could ever want to know about EdPuzzle, check out its YouTube Channel.

 

Copying Google Classroom

amcdonnell Faculty ,

FCS teachers have asked the FCIT several times both last year and again this summer if one can copy a Google Classroom class page. The answer is yes. Google Classroom added this feature last Fall and many undoubtedly will find it useful.

A word of caution, only use this If you are sure you want to teach this year’s course with very few changes to last year’s course.  If you are making even moderate changes, it may be easier to reuse posts from last year’s class or use this terrific idea.

-Alex