Learning about Canvas Partners

dejonghed07
Community Champion
‎09-16-2017 05:52 PM
0
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I was a lucky guesser in the partnertrivia and won some fun swag during #CanvasTrivia: Partner Day Edition (2017-08-24) . It was a good idea from panda because it makes us curious about the partner services. tl;dr: partners should send all Canvas users some swag!

 

Before researching a couple of the partners, I assumed that the partner services were paid services, but that’s not entirely the case. So far I learned about:

 

Kimono

Canvas recently partnered with kimono and this partnership will allow "bi-directional SIS-integration" for no additional cost according to elearningindustry.com: https://elearningindustry.com/press-releases/instructure-and-kimono-partnership-brings-long-awaited-...

 

Here are the details on the Canvas blog about what that means for Canvas users – for example, grades can pass back to another database and additional services may be purchased: https://blog.canvaslms.com/en/summertime-sis-canvas

 

BTW Alliance Partner - Kimono, the travel mug is one of my favorite swag items!

 

Portfolium

 

portfolium is a very modern-looking and user-friendly ePortfolio site. According to the representative, anyone can create an account for free. If schools pay to integrate it into Canvas, they will also have access to data and reporting features. I logged in and created an account, but haven’t posted anything. Here’s what it looks like https://portfolium.com/dejonghed07

 

A free portfolio site will be very useful in helping students demonstrate their skills and talents to potential employers! The customer service is very responsive - they have an online chat on their website and respond quickly through email. Their coffee mug is as snazzy as the design of their ePortfolio website!

 

I plan to check into the other partners who provided swag soon and update this blog post. One is respondus‌ - I know a little about them already, having used their free 30-day trial. I've also worked with faculty members who are familiar with their service.

LearnZillion

While searching for an LTI this week, I noticed that there is an LTI for learnzillion‌, a Canvas Partner. So, I visited their site and learned that teachers can create a free account. However, the LTI states that it only works with District-Wide accounts. Since it is a service for K-12 and I'm in Higher Ed, I didn't spend much time checking out what's available. Their website lists, "1000+ high quality lessons, videos, practice sheets and much more!" so anyone in K-12 might want to check it out. The resources were Math and English and it appeared that teachers can use them separate from Canvas if their district is not subscribed to Certified Partner - LearnZillion‌. When I taught K-12 English, I was always looking for fun ideas, and their service looks like it will help with that!

Respondus

My previous experience with respondus was helping an instructor print a Canvas Quiz using the free version: Respondus LE. It worked really well, but the quiz contained only multiple choice questions. The steps were:

  1. Export a quiz in Canvas under Settings>Export Course Content
  2. Install Respondus LE and click Open
  3. Select "Files of Type: xml, qti" and Browse your computer for the exported quiz
  4. Once imported, you can edit, print or save as txt, rtf or Word


Recently, I've been helping an instructor create more complex quizzes in Canvas: they contain multiple dropdowns, matching, and multiple choice. They also contain images and audio files. When she registered for the free, full version, 30-day trial of respondus 4.0 and tried converting it for use at another college where she teaches using Blackboard many of the questions resulted in errors. Her goal is to create one quiz that she can use in both LMS's. The solution may be to create the quiz in Respondus and export for both Canvas and Blackboard. According to the Respondus representative, question types that are supported in both Canvas and Blackboard are: multiple choice, true/false, essay, matching, fill in the blank, & multiple answers. We don't have Respondus available at our institution, but the pricing is only $79 for a single-user license that is a one-time purchase if purchased through the internet. That sounds like a very worthwhile price considering the time it will save instructors who teach at various institutions!

I've been regularly using the webcam giveaway from Respondus when we web conference across campuses, even through the giveaway is related to lockdown browser and respondus monitor‌. We don't have those available at our institution. Instead, we recommend instructional practices to ensure student identity such as:

  • Requiring synchronous (live online) sessions, such as exam, presentation, reflection or discussion (providing students with various options for days/times and letting them know about the required synchronous sessions in the syllabus).
  • Using assessment questions that are individualized/customized for students: Getting to know students in the discussions and using exam questions that focus on student interests and projects helps verify that students are submitting their own work.