"Seed" Annotations When Using the Student Annotation Assignment Tool

[JaimeLongo]

Is it possible for an instructor to "seed" annotations within an uploaded document that students are assigned to annotate using the Student Annotation tool?

In Perusall, I can include guiding comments and questions throughout an assigned document to model what annotations might look like and to give students a starting place for how to respond to a reading. Since I teach first-year students, providing this kind of modeling is crucial for helping them understand how, when, and why to annotate.

I don't see any corresponding functionality like this in Canvas's Student Annotation tool. In order to create annotations, I would need to use a PDF editor to add marginal comments BEFORE uploading my document and hope that students can see those comments (...which I'm not terribly confident would be possible). Am I missing something about how this tool works? I just don't see why I would stop using Perusall when switching to Canvas's version of annotation would mean losing a MAJOR pedagogical advantage of using a tool like this.

[TrishaMeyer1]

Hi @JaimeLongo ,

I tried using the Student View to annotate a document, download that annotated document, and then upload it as a new assignment, I was able to see highlighting and box frames, but in order to see text boxes and comments, I had to hover over the document (and there was no mark to indicate a comment - I knew where I had put the text boxes and comments and found them by moving my mouse around).

I was disappointed that this method didn't work, and I'm hoping someone else may have a better suggestion. This annotation tool is relatively new, and maybe this suggestion could be posted on the Canvas Idea board.

Canvas Ideas