Taking the Mystery Out of Canvas Assignments

 

Canvas Assignments

Taking the Mystery Out of Canvas Assignments

Created by Scott Aten, December 3, 2021

Hopefully Canvas is becoming a little easier for you this second year.   On our past PD days I did a session called "Taking the Mystery out of Canvas Assignments."  I have recorded this session and am posting it hear in case you were not able to attend.  I am also including some time stamps in case you are looking for something specific dealing with Canvas Assignments and don't want to watch the whole presentation.  I am also including a link to the session presentation notes if you would like to see them as well.

Video Time Stamps
Canvas Assignment explained - 0:48

Creating Assignments in the "Assignments Area" - 2:21

Creating Assignments in the "Module Area" - 4:25

Importing assignments from past courses/sandbox - 5:42

Create new assignments that will sync to ProgressBook - 17:20
What types of things can be added into a Canvas Assignment - 21:03

Adding assignment information in the Rich Content Editor - 22:53

Four basic submission types - 25:33

Assign to Area - 30:24

Online Submission types explained - 33:05

Student Annotation Assignments explained - 36:26

Google LTI assignments - 39:54

Grading Assignment Tips - 47:09

Troubleshooting assignments that did not sync to ProgressBook - 53:07

Please feel free to schedule me to come and assist you with Canvas Assignments if you have specific issues with your Canvas Course.  

[Green Technology Training Center]

[Click here to go to the YouTube Channel]

For more helpful information and the archive of previous posts, look for items in the menu to the left.

Green Local Schools

Tech Integration Team

Import Final Report Card Grades from Canvas to ProgressBook

 

Import Final Report Card Grades

Import from Canvas to ProgressBook with NO manual typing.

Created by Scott Aten, October 15, 2021

At the beginning of the school year you were given the choice of using the sync option to bring grades to ProgressBook or doing not syncing and manually type in the final grade on the report card at the end of the nine weeks.  What I didn't say at the time was that I was hoping to find a way to bring in the final grades to ProgressBook WITHOUT manually typing in all the final grades.  Good New! There is a way and this blog post will describe how to do it.

ONLY APPLILES TO STAFF THAT ARE NOT SYNCING GRADES 
So if you are doing the daily or weekly sync of each assignment into ProgressBook from Canvas, you can stop reading because this post does not apply to you.  For the rest of you here we go...

BASIC STEPS

1. Download your grades from Canvas as a spreadsheet
2. Make a few edits to the spreadsheet to get it ready 
3. Create an assignment in ProgressBook and copy that assignment to all the classes you teach.
4. Import Spreadsheet (final grade) into the assignment in ProgressBook
5. At report card time click "check/equals" and you are done with report cards

Now that you have the basic idea of what we are going to do, you are ready to look at the actual directions.  I have created both a written step-by-step document that tells you exactly what to do as well as a video of me doing all the steps that you can watch.

[Written Step-By-Step Directions]

Video Demonstration

That is all you need to do.  Follow these steps and your Canvas Final Grade will match perfectly to your ProgressBook Report Card grade.

Please keep in mind if you ever need to schedule me for a 1-1 help session, these can be scheduled using this link.

[Green Technology Training Center]

[Click here to go to the YouTube Channel]

For more helpful information and the archive of previous posts, look for items in the menu to the left.

Green Local Schools

Tech Integration Team

Report Card Time Saver

Use Google speech to text to dictate comments

Created by Scott Aten, January 9, 2020

It is that time of the year again "Report Cards". Report Card time can be very stressful. Along with entering all those grades, many teachers want to provide a meaningful comment for each student. A great time saver can be to use the built in Google speech to text feature to dictate your comment and them copy and paste it into the comment field in ProgressBook.

Here is how the "Speech to Text" or "Voice Typing" feature works in Google Docs.

This great feature is available for students as well, so consider modeling this for them at some point as well. It is like having your own personal secretary to dictate messages.

There are many other great features of Google demonstrated in the Green Google Training Center.

[Green Google Training Center]

[Click here to go to the YouTube Channel]

For more helpful information and the archive of previous posts, look for items in the menu to the left.

Green Local Schools

Tech Integration Team

Google 2019 Year in Review

What were all the new additions to Google in 2019

Created by Scott Aten, December 20, 2019

With the end of 2019 at hand, I thought it would be a good idea to show all the new features that have been introduced in G Suite during this year. I have listed them by product.

Google Facts

• Chromebooks are the #1 selling device in the US K-12 schools
• 90 million students and teachers use G Suite for Education
• 30 million students worldwide use Chromebooks
• 40 million students and teachers use Google Classroom

Google Forms

• June - question import in Google forms (see image to the right)
• August - locked mode for quizzes finally arrives
• October - fresh new look to Google Forms

Google Slides

• April - Add audio files from Drive into Google Slides (they had a little trouble with this and I don't think it made the April deadline, but is there now)
• October - new accessibility options for closed captions

Google Docs

• April - comparison in Docs allows you to compare two Google Docs and review the differences as suggested edits.
• May - grammar suggestions added (underlined in blue)
• July - new grammar tools in Docs to help students with spelling and grammar
• September - you can now see the word count while you type
• September - new fonts introduced to improve reading speed (see Lexend)

Google Classroom

• February - move posts to the top added in Classroom's Stream
• April - topic filters on the Classwork page is added
• April - new items will post to the top of the Classwork page
• April - thumbnails for the way that attachments appear in assignments
• June - rubrics added in Google Classroom
• June - grades section added to get a holistic view of students grades over time
• June - ability to sync grades to ProgressBook (Biggest new add of the year!!)
• June - rubrics now embedded in the student view of Classroom
• June - teacher can now archive a Google Classroom on iOS devices
• August - originality reports introduced to reduce plagiarism
• September - classroom celebrated its fifth birthday
• September - rubrics on mobile devices (beta)

Google Drive

• April - you can now edit Office files from Docs, Slides, and sheets without converting file types.
• April - you can now edit the metadata in Drive to better organize and search by tagging files

Google Sheets

• April - connected sheets will let you collaborate on up to 10 billion rows of BigQuery data - FINALLY :-)

Gmail

• April - added the ability to schedule send email

Hangouts Chat an Meet

• April - classic Hangouts in Gmail is replaced with new Hangout Chat
• April - live captions now available in Hangouts Meet

I am sure we can expect more great features to come in 2020!

[Green Google Training Center]

[Click here to go to the YouTube Channel]

For more helpful information and the archive of previous posts, look for items in the menu to the left.

Green Local Schools

Tech Integration Team

ProgressBook Video Tutorials

A complete catalog of videos explaining your favorite grade book application.

Created by Scott Aten, September 27, 2019

I wanted to pass along this great resource for all things ProgressBook. The link below will take you to the YouTube channel created for ProgressBook. Here are just a few of the many video tutorials available on this channel.

• New Assignment Marks Screen
• ProgressBook GradeBook: Google Classroom Sync
• ProgressBook GradeBook Grid

Here are some examples of complete playlists:

• Back to school with ProgressBook GradeBook Extended GradeBook features
• DataMap Homepage search options

[Click here to go to the YouTube Channel]

For more helpful information and the archive of previous posts, look for items in the menu to the left.

Green Local Schools

Tech Integration Team

Google Quiz to Classroom to ProgressBook

Google Quiz to Classroom to PB

Work smarter not harder by incorporating Forms, Classroom, and Progressbook

Created by Scott Aten, September 24, 2019

There have been a few updates to Google Classroom and Google Forms (Quizzes) that have made using these tools for assessments a little better. I wanted to write this blog post to give some clear directions on how to "work smarter" with these two tools, especially with the ability to move grades from Google Classroom directly into ProgressBook. So below are a few things you should know when you are ready to do an assessment with Google Forms (Quizzes) and assign it in Google Classroom.

Google Classroom Quiz Option
You may have noticed that Google Classroom has a new option under the "Create" button called "Quiz Assignment". This option will allow you to create an assignment that contains a blank quiz that is already setup as a quiz (rather than a form).
[Video demonstration of creating the "Quiz Assignment"]

Bringing in a Quiz I made without using the Quiz Option in Classroom
It is nice that Google Classroom now has the option "Quiz Assignment", but what about using a quiz I made in the past? Can I still take advantage of the Locked Quiz Mode and Import Grades? The answer is yes. You don't have to start with a blank quiz and use the "Quiz Assignment" type assignment, you can just use a regular assignment and pull the created quiz in from your Google Drive.
[Video demonstration of bringing in a previously created quiz]

Secure Assessment with the Locked Quiz Mode If you have not heard, Google Forms (Quizzes), now have the ability to be given in a locked browser. That means students can't open additional tabs, they can't use any extensions (includes Read and Write - Sorry Intervention Specialists). These quizzes have to be given on a Chromebook. The two videos above showed how to turn this feature on from inside Google Classroom, but you can also turn it on inside the Form (quiz) itself.
[Video showing how to turn on the Locked Quiz Mode inside the Quiz itself]

What is the Grade Import Option?
Many of you have been using Google Forms(Quiz) for assessments and know that, if setup correctly, it can auto-grade questions like multiple choice and short answer. But now you can import these grades into Google Classroom with a click of a button.
[Video demonstration of importing the grades from a Form/Quiz]

Grading my Assessment (especially if I have some questions that I have to grade)
On some of the Quizzes you give you may have to manually grade some of the questions. You can do this an still import the grades into Classroom.
[Demonstration of grading an extended response question then importing the grades to Classroom]

Importing Grades from Classroom to ProgressBook

All of this work ends up being well worth it since grades 4-12 now have the ability to import grades from Google Classroom directly into ProgressBook. If you missed my last post on how to do it, check it out here.

This may seem like a lot, but once you do it a few times, you should see that these tips will save you time in the long run and allow you to fully use the features of Classroom and Google Forms/Quizes.

For more helpful information and the archive of previous posts, look for items in the menu to the left.

Green Local Schools

Tech Integration Team

Google Classroom Import to ProgressBook

Google Classroom Import to PB

This is for Grades 4-12 ONLY!

Created by Scott Aten, August 26, 2019

Please understand that GradeBook does not send information to Google but ProgressBook can sync to your Google Classrooms. Features include the ability to import created assignments and synced assignment marks from your Google Classroom tovGradeBook. If you make a grade change or addition/delete in Google Classroom you must re-sync.

Please NOTE this is for grades 5-12 only. Early elementary has a standards based report card and at this time, the sync will not work.

The grades should be entered in Google Classroom first. If you make a change to the grade in Google Classroom the grades will need to be re-synced in ProgressBook to reflect the change.

For more helpful information and the archive of previous posts, look for items in the menu to the left.

Green Local Schools

Tech Integration Team

Back to School with ProgressBook

Tips for getting the school year started in your ProgressBook Account

Created by Scott Aten, August 21, 2019

Software answers has provided us with some "Back to School" tips for ProgressBook. In the first article "Back to School for Teachers" you will find information on the following topics:

• Assignment Details
• Assignment Marks
• Attendance
• Class Rosters
• Grade Weights
• Gradebook Grid (new features here)
• Seating Chart
• Student Profiles

[View the article here]

The second article titled "Back to School (Extended Features), covers the following topics:

• Assignment Banks
• Assignment Mark Import
• Assignment Types
• Class Groups
• Excluding Lowest Mark
• Parent/Teacher Meeting Reports
• Sharing GradeBook Assess
• Teacher Preferences

[View the article here]

I will also be creating a new Blog post very soon that shows how to push assignments in Google Classroom directly into ProgressBook - this will allow you to do all grading directly in Classroom! NOTE - Grades 5-12 only. Coming SOON!

For more helpful information and the archive of previous posts, look for items in the menu to the left.

Green Local Schools

Tech Integration Team

ProgressBook Updates

GradeBook items to be aware of for the start of school.  

Created by Scott Aten, August 16, 2018

Below are a couple items in ProgressBook GradeBook that I thought would be good to know for the start of school. Both items have a video demo as well as a quick reference card that you can print or save in your Google Drive for future reference.

• Updated Grid Features (video) - Quick Reference Card
• Weighted Grades 80/20 (video) - Quick Reference Card

For more helpful information and the archive of previous posts, look for items in the menu to the left.

Green Local Schools

Tech Integration Team