You’re Invited to a Canvas Focus Group

Canvas
As we approach the end of our first year fully using Canvas, we’re looking for some feedback from faculty who have incorporated the tool in their classes. While we have a bird’s-eye view into how Canvas works, we don’t always have insight into how it works for you. With that in mind, we’re interested in understanding:

 

  • How is Canvas meeting your needs?
  • What are challenges with using Canvas?
  • What are some favorite timesavers in Canvas?
  • What do you wish you could do in Canvas?
  • How do you use Canvas in face-to-face or blended classes?
  • How do your students engage with Canvas?
  • How has student participation increased?

To gather this information, Instructional Technology will host our first Canvas Focus Group on Monday, March 27.

Canvas Focus Group
Noon-1 p.m.
Monday, March 27
Fleck 314

Lunch will be provided, so please RSVP for this event and let us know about any dietary needs. In the meantime, if you have questions, please contact Brenda Adrian at brendaa@stedwards.edu.

Tech Failure!? Now What?

FailFor about 3 1/2 hours on Tuesday, Feb. 28, because of a large-scale event with Amazon Web Services (AWS), Canvas was unavailable to faculty and students. The outage lasted from around 11:40 a.m. to 3:10 p.m., and coincided with disruptions to other AWS-hosted services at St. Edward’s and across the country.

In general, our increasing reliance on cloud-hosted services results in much greater reliability, but incidents like this can still occur and cause temporary outages. For reference, Canvas’ overall uptime over the last 12 months is 99.98 percent, which is difficult to beat.

Canvas Support responded quickly to this outage, posting updates every 15 – 30 minutes on their status page . They have committed to working to limit our exposure to any future, similar events, but there is no foolproof way to prevent these situations.

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New Features in Canvas: 2-21-17

CanvasThe latest Canvas update includes a new interface for adding people to your class and Student Context Cards which provide another way of looking at student analytics in a class.

Adding People

With the new interface, faculty will be able to add Teachers, TAs, and Non-Grading TAs to their class by full Email address or Login ID (username appearing before the @ in email addresses).  In both cases, you will need to separate multiple entries with a comma.
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Meet Our New Learning Spaces Manager

Photo of Laura LucasHello! My name is Laura Lucas, and I am excited to join the Office of Information Technology at St. Edward’s as the new Learning Spaces Manager. I describe myself as a higher education professional and enthusiast who thrives on collaborating with other educators to innovate new ways to promote active engagement, curiosity, and deep, long-term learning in students. I hold a Master of Arts in Sociology from the University of Texas at Austin and a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology from Rice University. Continue reading

Scheduling Office Hours and Student Appointments

Calendar imageScheduling appointments to meet with individual students can now be managed through Canvas. This removes the frustrating administrative burden of managing multiple places (calendar, daily planner, email, hand-scribbled notes from class) where you track your student meetings to discuss that paper or project.
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Presenters Announced for Experiments in Teaching

Experiments in TeachingJoin the Center for Teaching Excellence, Instructional Technology, and the Munday library for Experiments in Teaching on Wednesday, February 22, 3:30 – 5:30 pm in Jones Auditorium (Ragsdale 101).

We invite all teaching faculty (full-time, adjuncts, and staff who teach), staff, and administrators to join us for talks and a reception celebrating pedagogical experiments on campus. Featuring a wide variety of St. Edward’s faculty members making brief presentations about their innovative teaching projects, “Experiments in Teaching” will explore the range of teaching initiatives at St. Edward’s University and the models they afford our teaching community. We aim to create a venue for colleagues to share the challenges and successes of teaching innovation. The event will be an open reception with food, drink, and “lightning” talks, followed by informal conversation among all participants. Presenters will use the brief lightning talk format to share a “teaser” for their project then be available for more conversation over refreshments. Lightning talks will begin at 3:30 pm.

Presenters include:

  • Richard Bautch | Gameplay, Biblical Text, and What Drives the Prophet: How Students Turned Call Narratives into a Video Game
  • Peter Beck | Conducting an international field course employing ecological and social research methods
  • Emily Bernate | Using Linguistics Corpus Data in English-Spanish Translations
  • Kim Garza | Augmented Reality to Highlight Archives
  • Katy Goldey and Raelynn Deaton-Haynes | Race for the CURE – A collaborative approach to a course-based research experience for undergraduates in Hormones and Behavior
  • Selin Guner | Xenophobia Workshop
  • Jena Heath | Students as teachers, allaying digital anxieties and building skills
  • Elisabeth Johnson | Close Reading + Glossed Reading via Social Annotation
  • Richard Kopec | Active Learning Pedagogy and LLCs
  • Katherine Lopez | Experiences from Flipping Intermediate Accounting
  • Jack Green Musselman | US/Russia Intercultural Dialogues: A Global Exchange
  • Alexandra Robinson | Whiter Shade of Pale
  • Georgia Seminet | Close Readings with Kami – Students Sharing Knowledge
  • Don Unger | Using Student-Made Videos to Document Community Engagement
  • Teri L. Varner| Using NVivo 11 Pro in Wicked Problems LLC : Listen, Learn & Communication (FSTY 1321)
  • Sara Villanueva | Leading Courageous Conversations in Your Classroom: Helping Students Engage in Difficult Discussions and Civil Discourse
  • Amy Wright | Exploring Austin through a Critical Lens
  • Debra Zahay-Blatz | How to Apply Digital Marketing Certification Content
  • Brad Zehner | Teaching International Business Using a Novella, Shades of Truth

Register for the Event: https://goo.gl/forms/W5i7jxc9CCCCgYTw1

Experiments in Teaching–Save the Date!

Please mark your calendars for:

Wednesday, February 22, 3:30 – 5:30 pm
Jones Auditorium and Lobby (Ragsdale 101)

Co-sponsored by the Center for Teaching Excellence, Instructional Technology, and the Munday Library

We invite all teaching faculty (full-time, adjuncts, and staff who teach), staff, and administrators to join us for talks and a reception celebrating pedagogical experiments on campus. Featuring a wide variety of St. Edward’s faculty members making brief presentations about their innovative teaching projects, “Experiments in Teaching” will explore the range of teaching initiatives at St. Edward’s University and the models they afford our teaching community. We aim to create a venue for colleagues to share the challenges and successes of teaching innovation. The event will be an open reception with food, drink, and “lightning” talks, followed by informal conversation among all participants. Presenters will use the brief lightning talk format to share a “teaser” for their project then be available for more conversation. Lightning talks will begin at 3:30 pm.

Pre-Register for the Event: https://goo.gl/forms/W5i7jxc9CCCCgYTw1

Displaying Announcements on the Home Page in Canvas

Canvas-Logo
In a release on 1-7-17, Instructure released a new feature for Canvas that we think you will find useful.

Announcements Can Be Featured on the Course Home Page

If your course has a content page set as the course home page, you can display a certain number of recent announcements at the top of the page. To enable this feature, go to Course Settings, scroll to the bottom and click on More Options. Select the Show Recent Announcements checkbox and specify the number of recent announcements that should be shown (up to 15). By default, the interface displays three announcements unless the number is adjusted. Announcements display in the home page for two weeks.

 

 

 

 

Click on Update Course Details to save your changes.

The announcements will show at the very top of the home page, before any course banner images or titles.

Screenshot of course home page showing announcements at top of page

For additional assistance in using Canvas contact Instructional Technology at support@stedwards.edu.