Digital Learning Educational Innovation Across Northwestern

Canvas has replaced the previous SpeedGrader mobile application with a new, multi-function Canvas Teacher mobile app (available for both iOS and Android) that is ideal for tablets. In addition to allowing you to grade and provide feedback on student work with a new and improved stylus-ready mobile SpeedGrader, you can also easily make updates to course content and communicate with your students on-the-go.

Download Canvas Teacher:  iPhone/iPad  Android

Student Context Cards give a simplified overview of a student’s progress.  The context card is a snapshot of the student’s progress: you can view a maximum of the student's last 10 recently graded assignments along with the assignment’s grade. You can even message students directly throught their context card. By clicking the student’s name in the People tab, the context card appears in a separate window within the page

Learn more about the Student Context Card

Panopto is a free desktop recording tool and content organizer now available to everyone at Northwestern. It can be used to record, manage, live stream, and/or share videos in the cloud via any web-enabled device. It is also enabled in every Northwestern Canvas course.

get started

Arc, the media collaboration and commenting tool from the makers of Canvas, has been upgraded throughout the last academic year to bring a more robust experience to your Canvas courses. New features include audio file support, bulk uploads, mobile uploads, replies to comments, and YouTube integration, as well as support for multiple language captions and captioning via automatic speech recognition. Instructors will also find it easier to manage their files with the Arc Media Library menu in courses where Arc is installed. Arc is free for all Northwestern instructors and students.

Install Arc in your Canvas course 

Course Reserves lets you request video and audio as streaming media for your Canvas course through Library Media. No need to carry that DVD around campus.

If you don’t need to the students to see the whole movie, you can make a clip(s) of the parts you want them to watch starting in Fall Quarter 2017. To learn how to use this new feature in Library Media, please attend one of our fall workshops or email Course Reserves for more information.

Register for a Library Media Workshop

The SpeedGrader in Canvas has been updated since spring quarter. The document viewer and annotation tools in Canvas SpeedGrader have a changed appearance and some changed functionality.

Here are the main things you need to know

After a successful pilot during spring commencement, NameCoach, a new name pronunciation tool, will be available in all Canvas courses. With the goal of creating a more inclusive classroom, NameCoach allows faculty and students to quickly and easily record themselves speaking their name for anyone in the course to access. Starting in fall quarter, NameCoach will be available in the left navigation of every Canvas course. Once faculty and students record their name the first time, the recording will be available in all future Canvas courses they are enrolled in. 

Start using NameCoach

Northwestern recommends instructors continue to use TurningPoint Cloud. 

Instructions on adding a registration link in your course

There is a slight change in how students complete the registration process.  

Provide these instructions to your students

Respondus LockDown Browser will be available to pilot over the next year. Ideal for computer lab exams, LockDown Browser can be enabled for any assignment using the Quizzes tool in Canvas. Once an exam is accessed, the student’s browser window will be locked, preventing access to anything on their computer outside of the exam in Canvas.

Stay tuned for more information about this pilot.

The Scheduler in Canvas has changed! Scheduler, now labeled “Appointment Group” in the Calendar area, is a feature in Canvas that allows students to sign up for designated time blocks set up by an instructor (often used for office hours or individual exams).

See these instructions to create an Appointment Group in Canvas

WebEx is a web conferencing tool that will be available to interested Northwestern faculty and staff starting mid-to-late Fall Quarter. WebEx will not appear in the Canvas course navigation, but it can be enabled by instructors within Settings in the Navigation tab within a Canvas course.

Stay tuned for more information.