Canvas (Native) Flashcards

[anonz3000]

Hi everyone. As part of evaluating Canvas for my school, I have been experimenting with adding interactive content to courses including embedding flashcards from quizlet.com and studystack.com. Embedding is neat, but I like the option of storing flashcard data right in Canvas so that the data is controlled and editable by teachers. To this end, I've created an app called Canvas Flashcards. The app is built with html, css, and jquery. It runs in a Content Page, and feeds on data in a hidden table on the same page. Teachers can put the page in edit mode to modify the table. Each row in the table is a card, and each column is a side of a card. Cards can have more than two sides. The app runs in desktop and mobile browsers, but it doesn't yet run in the Canvas Mobile App. That's my question. Does anyone know how to enable jquery to run in the Canvas Mobile App? Thanks.

[tdw]

Hi  @anonz3000 ​,

This looks like a pretty cool tool.  As to the mobile application, you're probably running into one or more of the following problems because the mobile apps are built native and pull in content via the Canvas API.

1) jQuery is not available on the mobile platform.

I don't know that this is the case or not, but you could test for it.

if(typeof jQuery === undefined) {
// go get jQuery
} else {
// jQuery is ready, do your thing!
}

2) Your selector is not on the page

var pageElements = ['#wiki_page_show'], i;
...
 isContentLoaded(pageElements[i], 0);

will always return false, so your script will never run because

<div id="wiki_page_show"></div>

isn't actually there.

[anonz3000]

Here is a video that explains why I decided that embedded apps are better than the Canvas Native Apps that I created when I first started experimenting with Canvas in Oct 2016.

This video is currently being processed. Please try again in a few minutes.

[jchie2]

Hi, Matt:

       This is very cool. I wasn't able to download the zip file after I clicked on the download button on github. Can you post it again please? It looks really good and many of our folks would probably love to use it.

Best,

Jennifer

[anonz3000]

Thanks, Jennifer. Let me emphasize that I strongly favor integrating with external apps like Quizlet and StudyStack over native apps like canvas-flashcards for the reasons discussed in the video. They are kind of fun, though. You can download from here. Click Clone or download > Download ZIP:

[fackrellj]

I know this is kind of an older discussion, but I wanted just add some thoughts as well. I'm a librarian and software developer and we just released Flash Reference (Edu App Center), a flashcard app. When developing the app we focused on adding features that would make it easy for educators to create study sets for their students. Here are just a few of the things that make an external tool a better choice:

1. LTI Integration - Study sets can be easily embedded into content or linked to in announcements using the External Tool Selector. The LTI integration automatically logs students in automatically, which allows you to create private sets. This is great if you have copyrighted material that you want to use.
2. Activity Tracking - Because students are auto-logged in, we can track usage and provide stats.
3. Study Sets can be shared with just your institution and collaborators added at the course level.
4. Flashcards can easily be edited with no HTML, CSS, or Javascript knowledge. 
5. Updates and new features are added by a development team dedicated to improving and specializing in a particular product.

[csarami]

The github is removed!