[New Quizzes] Student Highlight & Annotation Tools for Quizzes

[msommer]

Standardized testing looms large in the minds of all 3-8 grade teachers, in NJ where I work especially,  but also across the country. One of the skills students need to be able to succeed on the PARCC or SBA is to organize their thinking while reading across texts in an online testing environment, in order to write coherent essays and answer multiple choice questions citing text evidence in their answers. We teach them to do that by highlighting portions of the text as they are reading or going back to re-read, so they can use those pieces of evidence in writing their constructed responses. This is what they will be expected to do when they take PARCC or SBA.

We want our teachers to use Canvas to create engaging, meaningful, creative and collaborative learning experiences for students. The unfortunate reality of PARCC and SBA results being tied to teacher evaluations means our teachers also want tools they can use to specifically and directly help students practice for high-stakes testing. Annotation tools would go a long way in that regard. Please consider developing a way for students to highlight text in quizzes.

[bobby1_williams]

This is a fantastic idea! As an ELA teacher whose state and district does a lot of online testing, having this feature for our students to annotate on the text would be very helpful. Trying to teach this concept this past year with different programs was difficult, but being able to do it under Canvas and use our own texts would be perfect.

[sandra_staton]

In a world where the ability to frame thoughts and process knowledge through reading comprehension is essential to effective communication in the workplace, annotating text and the use of text dependent questions is often overlooked. The ability for engagement through comprehending the content being read is an essential to global learning. I agree that this element in canvas would serve to assist students with questions they encounter as they are processing questions for mastery knowledge. Thank you for this idea. I think it to be a tremendous addition to Canvas.

[lindseyn_baird]

This is a great idea, and would be extremely beneficial to students. We teach our students to do this on paper and my students wish they are able to do this on Canvas. On the End of Year exams, my district has switched over to all digital testing, and that platform DOES allow highlighting and a form of annotations. Therefore, it would be great if Canvas did as well.

[bonniek_robinso]

Yes, it would be great for students' to be able to use the same features throughout the year that they will be able to access via online standardized assessments. So many of us are moving to paperless classrooms, but still want to teach skills such as highlighting and annotating.

[ka_medina-whitn]

As a Spanish teacher, with students with a variety of skill levels and accommodations, being able to highlight and annotate tools for quizzes would be very useful. We do a lot of writing and peer editing and these tools could be a great asset. This is actually something I have discussed with other colleagues from other disciplines as well.

[jilliane_knicel]

I think this is an awesome feature! We preach annotations to our students but  with the transition towards using computers it made it difficult to make this possible. I'm excited to utilize this.

[jessica1_piekar]

This will be an amazing feature for Spanish. Our students have vocabulary words that they have to use in context and each vocabulary quiz we have to make a word box on paper. It would be useful if they can highlight the word on the test when they have used the word. 

[mullikd]

I also agree that adding the feature so that our students can highlight and annotate their texts on Canvas would be very beneficial since they are now doing this on their state assessments. Please add this feature ASAP! Adding the strike-through feature would also be beneficial for students.

[james_sanzin]

@melissa_childers Using Diigo is an interesting approach. I will have to give this a try. 

[james_sanzin]

 @mjoaquin ‌ I was about to ask the same thing.  I also use display 1 question at a time. Would each question count as page?