Allow Annotation of PDF Documents Directly In The Canvas App

[michael_berg]

  This idea has been developed and deployed to Canvas

  Idea will be open for vote Wed. October 7, 2015 - Wed. January 6, 2016  Learn more about voting...

I recently saw an archived idea (listed at the end of this listing). I am sad to see that it was archived with only 42 votes (I just leaned about voting today...brand new here). I would like to reemphasize a use case.

In today's paperless classroom it is useful to gather information from students through writing. Specifically in the K-12 arena, where we still sometimes ask students to fill out worksheets to show certain level of mastery of fact based work such as mathematics and grammar. While K-12 education should be striving to change from multiple choice tests and simple drill and kill to cognitive mastery, there are still cases where this type of assignment can be useful at reemphasizing skills. Furthermore, while speed grader does give the ability to the teacher to quickly click through rubrics or embed notes there are times teachers would like to "write" directly on student submissions. Adding in an annotation feature helps in both of these situations. Annotation features could also be used for signatures of documents passed back and forth for things such as field trips and other permission based files teachers may wish to send home with students.

For younger children especially, it is hard to advocate for using separate apps. Having one application that does viewing of pdf files and annotation would cut down tremendously on downtime used to submit and view documents. It would also tie well with the offline files feature that Canvas has already implemented for uses where internet is not reliable or homes which have no internet.

I would like to see the archived idea reopened for a vote. There are many competing products out that already do this sort of annotation. Our school is actually moving from a different product to Canvas because we want a more full blown LMS for online courses in the future. My teachers are all still under beginning phases of training and would all vote for the feature if it were opened up again. That would be 80+ more votes for implementation.

Student assignment annotation on mobile by Hilary Scharton

  Comments from Instructure

For more information, take a look at the release notes:

Canvas by Instructure Release Notes (iOS 3.15)

Canvas by Instructure Release Notes (Android 5.5) 

[nicole_berg]

If any of you are checking this there is another feature idea that was submitted that I would cross promote if that is okay here....if not someone let me know.

The idea is to basically streamline the submission of materials on an iPad so that when something is "opened in" to canvas instead of it going to temporary storage the user would be prompted to save the document to their files or to pick an open assignment and turn the document in...

[mikescheid]

I would love to see speedgrader app to have this capability even if the canvas app does not! Our teachers, especially, our english teachers say there main reason for not using Canvas to have students turn in papers is the ease of annotation not being great on a computer in speedgrader.

Please, Please, make it so annotations can be done on the iPad that has a touch screen!

[swhite4]

Is there a way to send a PDF Kami link through Canvas, so each student can open it, but have their own copy to annotate, vs collaborating?

[roy_kamada]

Chris, this looks like a cool tool--I was looking for a way to have students collaboratively annotate PDFs--sort of what happens in litgenius.com. Do you have a recommended workflow that you give to students?

[csiwinski]

I'd vote yes also

[roy_kamada]

I'd vote yes as well. Alternately, I would be happy with integration with a PDF annotation app such as PDF Expert or iannotate. If we could "open in" another app and then synch the annotated PDF back to the class folder as we can with a PDF in dropbox, that would be just as helpful I think.

[csiwinski]

We do all our annotation with Notability. You can "open in " in the canvas

app take it into notability . Do annotating and then bring it back into

canvas if they need to submit it.

Carol

Sent from my iPad

***********************************

carol siwinski

Instructional technology coordinator

Mount saint Joseph academy

120 w. Wisshickon avenue

Flourtown, pa. 19031

[michael_berg]

Thank you for the suggestion. We already know how to do that. The idea is to streamline things and make them as easy as possible for young students.

Michael K. Berg

[henrcy]

I'm new to Canvas and I am a math teacher.  I struggle with utilizing Canvas for assignments because of the value in seeing where students make their mistakes.  I see now that there are options rather than multiple choice or single answer questions.  Thanks!!

[marthazumack]

As we are preparing to launch courses for younger students (ages 8-11), this would be even more beneficial to us. Even some of our students aged 11+ struggle with having to use PDF files. In the meantime, I'll definitely recommend Kami!