Summary
Canvas has updated many of its features for Fall 2024. This post describes some of the most important ones for Dartmouth faculty.
Canvas has a few features that have gotten updates and additions over the past few months. As you head into Fall, it might be helpful to acquaint yourself with some of these updates/changes.
The two most notable changes are the Discussions Redesign and the “Assign to” feature.
Discussions/Announcements Redesign
We published a blog post about the new Discussions redesign in February. Since this blog post was released, Canvas has pushed the redesign out to all customers. Not only does the redesign impact the look and feel of discussions but it also makes slight changes to the Announcements interface. We highly recommend taking a look at the video in our post and playing with the new look and feel in a Sandbox course or in your Fall course prior to publishing.
“Assign To” Feature
In July, Instructure also introduced the “Assign To” feature in Canvas. This feature expands the ability of faculty to assign various parts of their Canvas site to students. Previously, instructors and course designers could assign only quizzes, assignments, and graded discussions to specific students and/or sections. Now, educators can:
- Assign entire modules, pages, quizzes, assignments, graded and ungraded discussions to individual students and sections.
- Manage course object assignments, availability, and due dates for all object types, directly from the Module Index page.
One thing to note about this new feature is that it introduced a new interface for assigning due dates to various types of graded content. There is now the ability to adjust dates without editing the assignment. Simply click the Assign to button in the assignment and a tray will slide out, allowing you to change due dates and availability for an assignment.
Partnership with Lucid Visual Collaboration Suite
Canvas has entered into a partnership with Lucid, a provider of virtual whiteboard and diagramming software. Dartmouth Canvas users will get free access to Lucid’s suite of tools, and the robust integration with Canvas creates new options for interactivity and collaboration. This Instructure blog post details some of the new features and discusses how to get started. We have enabled this integration in our instance of Canvas through assignments and the Rich Content Editor. These three short videos go into more detail about using the tools:
- Accessing Lucid in Canvas
- How to create a Lucid Assignment in Canvas
- How to embed Lucid content and collaborative activities in Canvas
It has been a busy summer for Instructure! In addition to the above new features Instructure has also released the following updates to tools in your course:
- Screenrecording for use as feedback in Speedgrader
- Ability for course faculty to add signatures and auto replies to their Canvas inbox
- Enhancements to the “Message Students Who…” functionality
As always, the Learning Design and Innovation group is happy to assist with course design or Canvas questions. Please feel free to email us at ldi@dartmouth.edu and make sure to bookmark our website and use it as a source for more information, to book a consult or to submit a help ticket with someone on our team.