Canvas on Amazon Alexa

[wuedward]

For the past month or so, I have been developing this Amazon Alexa to interface with Canvas API.  The app can retrieve grading, assignment and announcement information from a student perspective.  Please see the video below.  The amazon echo device is only $40 which is affordable to students.  However I think the real potential of this is from school/teacher/administrative and also the observer perspective.  Anyone has any ideas on how to make it more useful?

Canvas on Alexa voice interface - YouTube 

[nnasir]

This is pretty cool! Looks like it can be excellent for accessibility purposes. 

Nice work! 

This reminds me to download Alexa on my Raspberry Pi. 

[kroeninm]

It makes me want to get Alexa  @wuedward ‌, well done.  I'm not sure I'm ready for this level of technology  but I think what you have done sounds like the most relevant set of actions.  Checking announcements, grades, and assignments due is what would be at the top of my mind as a student.  For instructors, I think the only change would be in flipping what's due to "is there anything that needs to be graded?".  Inbox messages would be the other thing I check frequently in addition to Announcements.  i.e. Alexa do I have any inbox messages.  But usually I forward my Inbox to e-mail so not as important.  

- Melanie

[wuedward]

Thank you for your suggestion.  I will definitely implement that.  

[wuedward]

Ok I implemented the feature to check if there is anything that a teacher needs to grade.

Any assignment needed to be graded? - YouTube 

[mbuonato]

Alexa can read certain books bought through kindle. Maybe she could read specific assigned pages from a textbook.

[wuedward]

Thanks Melissa.  That's a good suggestion.  Unfortunately I checked on Amazon developer portal and they don't have any API on Kindle ebooks for developers to integrate.  

[muh]

I have done something similar to track live campus shuttle :-). Adding to  @mbuonato 's suggestion, Alexa could be helpful for special ed students, and/or online learning students.

[wuedward]

Hey Mu, is your live campus shuttle app on Alexa too?

[muh]

Yeah, it is listed on Amazon. But the main target users are my colleagues and myself 😄

[sonya_corcoran1]

Brilliant!!! Myself and  @justinball ‌ were dreaming about this...

[wuedward]

I just added another function to the Alexa skill.  It's to check your observees/children grades.  

Canvas on Alex - Check your children grades - YouTube 

[Stef_retired]

 @wuedward ‌, I've shared this innovative use of Alexa with the Accessibility‌, Higher Education‌, and K-12‌ groups. More people need to see this. 

[sethgurell]

I could see a few instructor use cases related to analytics. For example, if an instructor could ask "Who failed the last assignment graded in IT-101?" or "Which students in IT-101 haven't logged into Canvas in the last [x] days?" Those commands might be difficult because of the need to aggregate data for an answer.

A related set of commands might be related to the 'Message Students Who.." functionality in the gradebook. That way an instructor could say "For Quiz 13 in IT-101, message all students who haven't submitted yet" and then the user could specify the message that goes out to students (e.g. "Just a reminder that the due date is May 30."). 

[wuedward]

Thank you IDS ID2.  Those are really good suggestions.  Hopefully I can spend some time this weekend to work on them.  I looked into the command you suggested, "Which students in IT-101 haven't logged into Canvas in the last [x] days?" and I was able to implement it.  I used recent_students through the API.  I think I should indicate how I use the API to develop the commands so that maybe someone can tell me a better way to go about it.

https://youtu.be/FbHBH553m4I 

https://canvas.instructure.com/api/v1/courses/xxxx/recent_students?enrollment_type[]=student&enrollm...<token>

[natalie_norton1]

This looks great! Is the skill available in the UK or just US? We are going to offer Echo Dots as a prize this month and it would be great to mention a Canvas skill! Thanks

[wuedward]

Hi Natalie,

Sorry for the late reply.  I just got back from a long vacation.  

The skill is not published yet.  The tricky part is that because the Alexa service is directly integrating with a single school Canvas instance (that also means there is no storing data in between), the school admin will need to provide me with a client id and client secret to setup the skill and that skill will only work for that particular school (OAuth2 - Canvas LMS REST API Documentation ).  With that said, if you are interested, I am more than happy to work with your Canvas admin and to publish a skill just for your institution (or any community members who are interested).  Publishing a skill doesn't incur any cost to me or you and for the back end processing, I use a service called Amazon Lamda which is literally free to me because Amazon provides me with promotional credit.  For my benefit, I just want to see my skill passed the skill certification processes and being published.  

Thanks,

Edward

[teraulbert]

Alexa is on sale today for Prime Day! 🙂 

Amazon Echo Dot - Add Alexa to any room (Dot)

Amazon Echo - Amazon Official Site - Alexa-Enabled (Echo)

[zal5010]

Is the Canvas Skill live now? I can't seem to find it in the Skills Store.

[Stef_retired]

Yes,  @zal5010 ‌: see the reply to your question here. 

[jerry_radulescu]

Hi, 

I am having problems with my Canvas skill on Alexa device! I For University of Hull, is Canvas skill live now?
When I say, "Alexa, open Canvas", DOT (or Alexa) gives me the message "sorry, I'm having trouble accessing your Canvas skill right now" !

I folowed the procedure to enable Canvas on my Alexa devices. (Echo and Dot)
I enabled the Canvas skill in the Alexa app , entering my institution's Canvas name and the app directlly showed my Canvas acount email and authorising name to my canvas account.
I dissabled the lock skill with a security pin, and I completed account linking, and I received the message that "Canvas has been successfully linked"
What can I do to have an working Canvas skill on my device?