New Rich Content Editor workshops

As a reminder, the implementation of the New Rich Content Editor, which has been postponed twice by Canvas, is scheduled to become the default in Canvas in early January. To prepare for this, the TLC is conducting workshops on it Oct. 29 from 3-4 p.m. and Dec. 4 from 11 a.m. until noon.

 

If you want to participate, sign up on the TLC Workshops page.

 

Since the New RCE is already an option for your Canvas classes, some of you are using it in your Fall classes. If you want to play with it in your sandbox, go to Settings – Feature Options, and toggle the Off switch to On for RCE Enhancements.

 

Watch a Canvas video on the New RCE.

Read the Canvas guides about the New RCE for step-by-step tutorials.

 

If you have already registered for these workshops, please do not do so again.

 

Scott

Canvas updates

The Canvas update that was supposed to change the interface students see when submitting assignments created with the Assignments tool never happened Saturday as planned. Canvas was contacted, fixed it, then offered the option of not deploying that enhancement right now. After consulting with Chabot, we have decided to leave the interface as it currently is but will update it between semesters. This way, students won’t see something different in the middle of the semester. Apologies to those who already notified your students.

 

Also, I’m giving you a heads-up that I plan to enable Canvas shells for Spring 2021 courses on Nov. 3. Students won’t be added until early January.

 

Scott

Regular effective contact reminder

In an effort to ensure that the state- and federally mandated regular effective contact regulations are being met in online and hybrid courses, the LPC Distance Education Committee has asked me to send a Mid-Semester Regular Effective Contact Checklist to you. These mandates include instructor-initiated interaction with students and fostering student-to-student interaction.

Links to more information are included at the bottom of the checklist.

If you have any questions, let me know.
Scott

 

Two more Canvas enhancements

Canvas will be rolling out two more enhancements Saturday. The first changes the interface students will see when submitting assignments created with the Assignments tool. The second makes Math equations more ADA-compliant.

 

Student Assignment Enhancements

Current Interface

 

 

New Interface

 

Students can now drag and drop a file to submit or click Upload File to navigate to a file to submit. More Options will allow them to submit a file that they had previously uploaded to Canvas, access Canvas Studio and even their Google Drive. Once they do any of the above, they will have to click the Submit button.

 

If you have students who are confused about the new interface, or if you just want to be proactive, you can send them this link: How do I view an assignment in a course using Assignment Enhancements as a student? This page probably gives them more detail than they need to know, but it does go over everything.

 

Nothing changes on your end while creating an assignment using the Assignment tool. You might want to take note that students now have a link to your rubric (if you use one) instead of seeing the rubric below the assignment.

 

Math Equations

This change is behind the scenes and improves accessibility for equations throughout Canvas. Previously, equations were treated as an image and included title attributes and alternative text and were not available to keyboard users. Additionally, image views varied by browser and screen readers, equations could not be copied, and alternative text could be inadvertently changed or removed.

Canvas enhancements

I wanted to let you all know about a couple of enhancements Canvas is scheduled to make to our system Saturday:

 

1. There will be a new History icon in the global navigation menu on the far left. Clicking it will display the most recent pages viewed in Canvas up to the last three weeks.
2. The Notifications page that you access from the Account icon will be updated to match the design of the course-level Notifications page. There will be a banner stating: “Account-level notifications apply to all courses. Notifications for individual courses can be changed within each course and will override these notifications.”

 

Scott

New evaluation link in Canvas

LPC Faculty,

 

The District recently purchased a tool called EvaluationKit that will be used to conduct the FA-negotiated student survey in Canvas as part of the official evaluation of online instruction process. The tool was installed today, and there is one thing of which all instructors need to be made aware:

 

In every course, you will notice EvaluationKIT Course in the top box in Settings – Navigation. This allows the survey to be deployed to courses, so please do NOT disable it by clicking the three dots to its right or by dragging it to the lower box. Just ignore it. The link is not visible to your students unless you are being evaluated, and even then, it will only be visible for the duration of the evaluation.

 

I wish the installation didn’t put the link there, but nonetheless, thank you for your cooperation.

 

Scott