Add Audio to your Quiz

It has been some time since I last posted. I was chatting with James the other day and he tipped me off on a great way to accommodate students who could benefit from an audio playback of questions and item choices on quizzes. This is especially handy considering that sometimes there are a number of students requiring someone to read aloud questions and item choices for quizzes. This trick works on any Canvas application that makes use of the rich text editor and works really slick. The bare bones of this is that you would add a recording to each question. This could be done on each individual quiz as you move along through the year but my favorite quiz function is the quiz bank. By setting up more questions than you require on any given quiz you can select multiple quiz banks from which each quiz will draw so that essentially you are giving 30+ versions of any assessment. This also allows retakes on newly designed quizzes each time with no additional prep time for you.

Adding audio to quizzes or assignments could also enable the teacher to add verbal instructions or guidance to students via the play button.

Note: There is no audio in the video until the 27 second mark to allow me to complete the video in under my set 99 second limit.

Add Audio to a Quiz     1:11

Older clips

Setting up a Quiz Bank Part 1    1.37

Setting up a Quiz Bank Part 2    2:02

Setting up a Quiz Bank Part 3    1:30

Quiz Banks - Deep Dive  22:00

Google Slides Templates

 Have you ever wanted to make up a Google Presentation in order to use it as an e-book but was concerned that students would accidentally or on purpose move items around on the slides? This fix will take care of that issue. Matt, from Ditch that Textbook, has a good write up on how to make up templates to take care of that issue.

An easy way to accomplish the same end is to make up a slide as you want it to be. Take a screenshot of the slide, which turns it into a PNG file, and then use it as the background image. Then, add text boxes or images etc. that you want students to manipulate over the background immovable image.

Sorry, there is no video clip for this tip.

Canvas Quizzes - Quiz Banks

This episode of the 99 will be considerably longer than 99 seconds. Actually, it is over 20 minutes as I am demonstrating start to finish how to set up a quiz using quiz banks. So, sorry about breaking protocol for my site.

Pros:

• Quickly set up a new quiz as long as you have made up questions for your banks
• Students each have a different quiz which is especially handy if sitting side by side in a classroom
• Students can retake a quiz and it will be varied per the quiz bank question options
• Never two quizzes are exactly alike
• You can still tailor a quiz or set one up for a group read aloud by selecting specific questions from the bank
• Quiz questions in a bank can be edited from inside the specific bank

Cons:

• Quiz questions must be edited from inside the specific bank
• When you import a past course, you must rebuild the quiz by relinking the bank

Quizzes and Quiz Banks (22:47)

         

Google Cast for Education (Deep Dive)

Hey there. I have been silent for quite some time. I have not seen anything new worth taking your time. This definitely is worth your time.

The other day a colleague mentioned Google Cast for Education so I had to check it out. Turns out it has been out since summer of 2016 with little fan fair in my little world. When we first went one to one with Chromebooks I wanted to have the ability for students to cast their screens to my big screen. I wanted to add a Google Chromecast dongle but HQ did not allow that so I was shut out. Google Cast is the perfect tool to make that happen with no added devices and is free with G-Suite and an updated Chrome OS above at least version 52. Now students can make presentations, show examples of documents, or anything I want them to cast without collecting slide shows and putting them together for them to display. I have complete control of what goes up to the screen as well and can I can cast from my laptop tablet on the go. I can't wait to actually try this tool out.

My 99 video clip is short and sweet but if you want to try this in your classroom, I would advise checking out the two video clips and or short documentation posted to the document below. This is a deep dive but after you get it set up it will work all year. If you want to set this up and need some support, please feel free to let me know. I would love to help you make that happen.

It took me exactly 34 minutes to input all 144 of my student's emails by setting up very quickly Google Classroom and five groups (classes). There are other ways to import the emails but I do not see any way to do it in bulk. When using Classroom it recognized most of my students when I entered names. The others I had to type out their emails. I put Classroom side by side to my TAC periods and entered.

Google Cast for Education 99 second video

Google Cast for Education document and help videos

Google Cast for Eduction Helpful Page with Videos

10 Canvas Favorite Tips

I have posted a sheet of tips that I currently use with Canvas and have updated this fall. Some of these are old but some may be new to you. I have attached the link to the document to keep this post to a minimum. After each tip there are a few labels that you can look for on the 99 and will take you to a previous screen cast on the subject.
10 Canvas Favorite Tips White paper only, no video here.

Speed Grader Specific Class Selection

When you wish to change from "view all classes" in Speed Grader to a specific class you have to move your curser very fast or the gap between drop downs will cause the specific class selection window to disappear. It can be a little frustrating if you don't move fast. Check out the clip on this post for a quick demo.

Update! It looks like Canvas has patched this problem but you never know if it will rear its head in the future.

Speed Grader Class Selection

Dashboard Course Card Color Overlay

For quite some time we have been able to place an image onto our course cards in Dashboard mode. The problem has been that each image had to have a color tint overlay. I just noticed yesterday that we now have an added option of turning that color overlay off so that the image is clear and free of the tint. Students will still have the option of turning on or off the color tint overlay as it is machine specific. Click the gear at the upper right and also click on or off the overlay. The image below on the left has the overly on and the image to the right has the overlay clicked off. You can still control the color of your class name by clicking the three dots at the upper right of each course image.