Mass Create Pairing Codes

[jmoreno]

This idea has been developed and deployed to Canvas

It would be awesome to be able to create mass pairing codes for  K12 students. We have had parents request codes but have had to create the codes one by one. A way to mass create pairing codes for our Parents would be great.

Comments from Instructure

For more information, please read through the https://community.canvaslms.com/docs/DOC-16958-canvas-release-notes-2019-07-13 .

[Renee_Carney]

 @jmoreno  

Can you provide more detail on the use case or work flow you are using?  It is now possible for students to initiate the pairing code for the parent.

How do I generate a pairing code for an observer as a student? 

[tsample]

Hi Renee, 

Students, particularly high school students, are not fond of giving parents access to what's going on in their classes. Many parents struggle to get information from their students and some are straight up afraid to ask. If a teacher can provide their parents with student paring code, they can communicate directly with parents. For example, at Back to school night I would have a letter that introduces Canvas and how they can sign up for the app. I would create a separate letter for each student with their individual pairing code and give this to the parent. 

[jmoreno]

Hi Renee,

Like Tami mentioned students don't like giving their parents access to their classes. What we traditionally do is we would have a workshop where we would teach the parents about canvas and help them set up their account and pair them with their students. Mass creating pairing codes would be ideal for the workshop so we could have the codes ready to help the parents set up their account.

[tsample]

YES, please!!!! 

[tsample]

Also, I have admin access but cannot find any directions on how I can (or teachers) create pairing codes? Can someone guide me where I can find this information???

[jmoreno]

If you go to a Student and click on them to go to their profile. On the right-hand side, there should be a button that says "Pair with observer" I hope this helps.

[bogardde]

At the elementary level, we have back-to-school "curriculum nights" during which teachers help parents learn to access the many and often confusing (to our many non-tech-savvy parents) sites and tools that they can monitor for their students' learning progress. It would be a huge help if teachers could mass generate pairing codes ahead of time, to hand to parents (along with the directions for signing up) as they arrive for these meetings.

The changeover to pairing codes from the previous method had everyone scrambling to come up with a good workflow last month. One team of 5th grade teachers I work with took about 10 minutes of class time to walk students through the pairing code process, and had them write the code on a slip of paper to hand out to their parents that evening. It worked kind of okay, but have you seen kids' handwriting these days? Penmanship skills are no longer an educational priority, and many parents struggled to read what their own student had written. Now try to imagine the same scenario at the first grade level! 

A printed code would be much more user friendly, and wouldn't take up valuable class time.

Kids be like...

[tsample]

Yes! I could not agree more with the comments of Deborah!

Tami T. Flood

Canvas Lead Teacher

Cheltenham High School

Google for Education Certified Trainer

EdPuzzle Coach

Newsela Certified Educator

[thompsli]

This would definitely be a big help! Most other products I've dealt with that have a parent account have a way to mass-produce class sets of form letters or labels with instructions for setting up the account and whatever specific login information printed on them for each family, so you can hand each parent a piece of paper with both the general "how to set up your account/where to log in" directions and the specific "and the code you need to use to see your Johnny's grades is ExAmpL" information.

Being able to export a spreadsheet with Student Name PairingCode1 PairingCode2 (so each parent can set up their own account - some families might need more than 2 accounts but two would cover the common case) for the whole class would be my personal preference. I can then use that to create a mail merge in a word processor for whatever form letter (or labels to stick to a bulk-printed how-to sheet) I come up with for my class.

I spent  ENTIRELY too much time at back to school night walking parents through creating accounts one by one on the spot after generating their code rather than talking about my actual courses. Being able to walk through parent account creation with a group of parents all at once after passing out papers with their specific codes on it would have been much more efficient (most had smartphones and downloaded the app).

[10509]

As a co teacher who is "piloting" the sytem as we decide what LMS to use when we go one to one next year, I have to say that the inability to easily add parents to my high school teachers accounts is a huge detriment.  The phone app is difficult for both students and parents to use and we are not given time on back to school night to teach them all how to use it.  The ability to add parents by replying to an email like in Google Classroom or to observe the class without a code would be phenomenal.  I have spent way too much time working with parents to get them connected with a program that I find to be excellent to use in most other ways.