Enable the Student Annotation assignment type in the Student App

[wagnerpj63]

This idea has been developed and deployed to Canvas

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I LOVE the new option for student annotation on assignments.  Thank you.  Our district has a large number of iPads for our elementary students, however, and that feature is not active in the student app where most of our elementary students work.  Please consider adding the annotation functionality to the student app sooner rather than later.  Our teachers will love this new feature.

[KristinL]

Hi!

The ability to annotate PDFs existed in the app before it was available for the web! Students should be able to annotate assignments on their iPads, no problem.

How do I submit a PDF assignment with annotations ... - Canvas Community  and  How do I add annotations to a submission in the St... - Canvas Community  will help you get started. 🙂

If you have any follow-up questions, please reply! The Community will do its best to connect you with the resources you need.

[Stef_retired]

Thanks, @KristinL , for providing the method teachers can use right now on mobile!

@wagnerpj63  Since students can annotate PDFs through Canvas Student, we made a slight edit to your idea to specify that it is focused on enabling the new annotation submission type in Canvas Student.

[kirsten_ryall]

I think I understand the challenge but let me know if I have got it right. Currently, if a teacher wants to create an assignment that has students annotating a file as a submission, they may have to set up two separate ways to submit this assignment. Am I even close? 

For those students on desktop for example (not the student app), a teacher would set the assignment to submit as Student Annotation. But for those students who use a device that is  an ipad or anything on the mobile app, then the teacher would need use File Upload submission type. So that is potentially two different sets of submission instructions for one assignment. 

I am querying this as we have been asked to look at an external tool, and I am wondering if this is the reason why the requestors have asked to proceed with the external tool. They'd prefer a one-tool-fits-all solution. Of course, I am meeting with them to get more information shortly but thought this may be related. 

[hwalter1]

So, when talking with one of your Infrastructure specialists they alerted me "Student Annotation" submission type as a potential way to do quizzes and exams in science subjects. 

However.. its unsupported on an iOS or other mobile platform.. So, essentially it's useless. 

Please fix this. Means we are back to really clumsy options for testing in biological sciences and that we can't actually do what we need to do without paper. So silly in this mobile age. 

[CarlaD07]

Agree! This would be a great addition. Our teachers saw the new Student Annotation submission type and went to town. Then they realized that if they click this type the students were unable to open the assignment on the iPad. It would be great if it this could be added to the iPad. I know students can annotate on PDF files teachers upload into assignments on the iPad, but how you turn in these assignments on the iPad does not follow the same workflow as other assignments which is confusing for students. Also, if teachers have students who are on iPads and others who are on laptops, they need to create two separate assignments (Student Annotations for computer users and PDF file assignment type for iPads) to make this work because if a student in the App clicks on an assignment with a Student Annotation submission type, the assignment will not load in the Student app.

[NicholeDirks]

 @KristinL    I am trying to do this with a tablet. It is not working. I have an assignment (uploaded a worksheet that I want my students to complete) and when it opens, the annotation tools do not work. The page moves around and will not stay fixed so that my students can write on it. 

Can a mobile friendly annotation tool be added just until Canvas can update their semi-friendly student annotation tool? Reactive Kami in the meantime?? As of right now, my students cannot complete any assignments on Canvas, which is frustrating. 

[KristinL]

Hi @NicholeDirks - Are your students using the Canvas Student app for their annotations?

[NicholeDirks]

@KristinL I have tried both the app and the website. Neither one works on the iPads.