[ARCHIVED] Can teachers annotate PDF assignments for specific students before students do?

[kakutzke]

When our district listened to Canvas present, I asked if teachers could annotate assignments. They said yes, but now I am trying to annotate specific students' assignments to modify them before the students do them. For example, I want to highlight/color code certain parts and I'm not able to. Is it possible to annotate PDFs before students submit work? I know that I can annotate once students submit work. This feature is so easy on Showbie. Our district switched away from Showbie for many other reasons, but I am wondering if there is a similar feature on Canvas. 

[Chris_Hofer]

Good morning, @kakutzke ...

I do not know of a way to annotate PDFs online prior to your students actually doing the work.  I know this probably won't be a great work-around, but the first thing that came to mind was to do all of your annotations "offline".  You might even create folders for each of your students on your computer to keep their work organized.  You'd have to make a PDF for each student and then send it to them individually via the Canvas Inbox.  Again, it is not ideal by any means, but at least this way you are getting these documents to your students before they begin working on the assignment.

I hope this will be of some help to you.  Let Community members know if you have any other questions about this...thanks!