Upload an image directly to a discussion as a student

[seth]

This idea has been developed and deployed to Canvas

As a student, I want to be able to upload an image directly to a discussion. I can only do this today using a cludgy, two-step workaround: (1) upload the image to my personal files, then (2) use the content-picker in the discussion-response window to select the image from my files. Instructors can upload images directly to discussions. Students can upload images directly to other parts of Canvas. Seems odd that this use case requires a workaround.

transferred from the old Community
Originally posted by: Sunny Washington
Thank you especially for contributions by: T Beasley, Stefanie Sanders

Comments from Instructure

This is now completed for mobile and web.

For more information, please read through the following release notes:

Canvas Student Release Notes (iOS 6.3) 

Canvas Student Release Notes (Android 6.3) 

https://community.canvaslms.com/docs/DOC-15857-canvas-release-notes-2018-11-17 

[rlbrown21]

FINALLY!  does this go live yesterday? 

[zechariah_kouns]

I am Livid. Just Livid. WHY HASN"T THIS BEEN BLOODY IMPLEMENTED YET!!!!? It has been MULTIPLE years since this is up and this HASN'T been implemented after ALL this TIME!? SERIOUSLY!? I don't even see how this MOST BASIC feature which is on MANY MANY websites is NOT on this area of this website which is where it's needed MOST. I'm not a coder, but it really shouldn't take 4 YEARS to implement this in. I don't even know how this was "greenlit" without said feature. If you can't implement that, then the very least expand the "Imbed" to include images from your computer alone. Now, I recognize I'm just SMASHING my key board, being mad, right now, so I'm not being very rational right now, but seriously, this is just ludicrous.

[johnmartin]

I wonder if the fact that it exists via CIDI means Canvas doesn't see a need to build it into the core product?

[awilliams]

Hi zechariah.kouns Welcometo the Canvas Community! I can completely understand the frustration when a particular feature isn't functioning the way users need or want it to. There is a lot that is involved with the feature development process for Canvas and you can read more about that at How does the feature idea process work?

For this specific feature, I can pass along this information from a comment last week by  @scottdennis :

"Rich Content Editor: File/Image Drag & Drop" and "SpeedGrader Screen Recorder" are both slated for development after Instructurecon 2018. Usually we don't like to comment on when things will be released until they are done and through QA and we can deliver on promises made, but both updates are slated for development.

 @johnmartin ‌, this may answer your latest question as well.

I hope you will continue to participate in the Community and share your successes as well as your struggles here where we can all help each other out. Cheers!

[laurakgibbs]

I totally understand the frustration (there are honestly a lot of things that frustrate me about standardized software)... and the solution I opt for is just to find other tools that meet my requirements while waiting to see if/when the features I want show up in the LMS. A tool like Padlet, for example, easy to embed in Canvas, is very student-friendly, allowing them to quickly upload images, share videos, etc. in an environment that, at least for my purposes, is much more visually appealing than a traditional discussion board.

Even when students are finally able to upload images quickly and easily, the discussion board is going to be what it is: an old-style online format that is very far removed from the kinds of online environments students choose to participate in when they are connecting and sharing online. 🙂

[arovner]

Hi Laura,

Padlet is definitely a fun option.  Just keep in mind that, right now, it's not particularly accessible.  You can check out their accessibility info here. It sounds like they are working on it but I doubt it will ever "force" students to add alt text to images like Canvas now does for faculty.  (I'm hopeful that same workflow will happen for student uploads as well whenver they finally roll it out).

Best,

Amy

[laurakgibbs]

Image accessibility is more than just about alt-text, unfortunately. If you are using images to actually convey content, other than just for fun/decoration, it takes a lot to write out the information conveyed by the image in text. I have an ongoing project to transcribe the text from infographics, for example. For meaningful images, it's often a matter of transcription, not just a snippet of alt-text for a screenreader. A good solution can be to provide that text information together with the image, or to provide a link that goes from the text accompanying the image to a blog post (the link-to-blog-post is my preferred solution) in order to supply the full text explanation that students would need. I'm all for alt-text, especially to alert students that the image is purely decorative... but for images that are more than decorative and actually convey content (just think of any kind of chart, graph, infographic, etc.), alt-text is rarely enough, and often a hyperlink is what you need to go to another page that has a detailed transcription / description.

[arovner]

laurakgibbs‌ Most definitely!  I completely agree.

All the more reason for faculty to be cautious when using a tool like Padlet without knowing themselves, and also teaching their students, how to make what they post accessible to all of their classmates.

Amy

[laurakgibbs]

Well, I guess I'm actually saying something quite different (and I do that based on having taught classes in which I had a blind student in the past, and also several classes with deaf students): making content accessible is actually a huge undertaking; that's why schools have offices to support students with needs in order to get transcriptions and descriptions of visual charts, to do something better than auto-captioning for videos, etc. I worry that people have been lulled into thinking that by providing a snippet of alt-text for an image they have made their content accessible. Not at all. It's so much more than that, and to say that something is accessible just because it has alt-text is actually not correct. All it means is that a student using a screenreader can access the alt-text using their screenreader. How close or far that is to accessing the information being conveyed by the image is quite a different question; often it is very far indeed. 

[arovner]

Hi Laura,

We are both A11y's here so I don't want this string to sound like we are arguing. I fully agree that there is SO much more that needs to be done in a course if you have an enrolled blind student. 

In our state for all IT we use on campus and online, we are now required to have a VPAT and, if that and testing shows a tool to be non-compliant with WC3 2.0 standards, we need an equally effective alternate access plan in place prior to selecting that as a tool in our courses.  Yes - at this point - this is more aspirational than reality but that's what we are working towards.  I tossed out "alt-text" because we are discussing images but accessibility of a tool is more than just that and for more disabilities than just low/no vision.  

Padlet hit a nerve because I am currently trying to get more accessibility information from them about their product and it's been slow going.  Ironically I finally (last interaction was in early Feb!) got a reply from Padlet this morning but it was pretty much a "non-response:"

"Thank you for writing for us. First of all, I want to apologize if it’s taken some time for us to write back to you.

Your request goes beyond just engineering but might need some further study. As such, we will try to update you as soon as we can, but the work required is estimated to occur over a span of months.

Please know that we are doing our best. Please let us know if you have any further questions. Thank you."

Keep up the good accessibility work - it's going to take a global education village to make our needs heard by vendors, publishers, etc.!!

Best,
Amy