Free for Teacher Gets An Update

[scottdennis]

Three months ago I posted Free for Teacher Feature Options, where I described how feature options, or flags, are used in Canvas to allow institutions when to release certain changes to their own instances of Canvas. Free for Teacher, although used by many many people around the world, is effectively just a "normal" production instance of Canvas. Periodically we make decisions about which changes to enable in Canvas. Depending on how a feature is released, admins may choose to have a new change be ON, OFF, or set to ALLOW.  With the last option, individual teachers can choose whether or not to turn on the given change in their course settings.

Yesterday we did another periodic review and chose to make the following changes:

• ePub Exporting (ALLOW) - Enable users to generate and download course content as an ePub file.
• New User Tutorial (ON) - Provide tutorial information for new users in an expandable sidebar.
• New Quizzes Importing (ON) - Allow importing of QTI and Common Cartridge into New Quizzes.
• Product Tours (ON) - Assist new instructors in learning about Canvas with a in-product tutorial.
• RCE Auto-Save (ALLOW) - If RCE Enhancements are also enabled, the RCE will auto-save your work as you go.
• RCE Enhancements (ALLOW) - Allow switching to the enhanced RCE. This one is a prerequisite for RCE Auto Save. We briefly set it to ON, and then switched it to ALLOW.
• Wrap event titles in Calendar month view (ON) - Show calendar events in the month view on multiple lines if the title doesn't fit on a single line.

These changes have also been reflected in our Canvas Account Comparisons PDF document.

If you'd like more information about these features, please see What feature options are currently available for Canvas courses?  ‌

[Kelvin_Dean]

Regarding the feature New Quizzes Importing (ON) - Allow importing of QTI and Common Cartridge into New Quizzes, New Quizzes isn't available for FFT at this moment. When will FFT get New Quizzes so we can try it out?

[scottdennis]

Hi Kelvin,

I'm not sure.  Probably in June but don't hold me to that.

Thanks,

Scott

[MsTia]

Always appreciate FFT upgrades! Thanks.

The Calendar event title wrap is very sweet.

But the RCE auto-save???? Omigosh!! If only I had paid attention earlier. This is huge. Kudos, indeed.

[info71]

It would be EXTREMELY helpful if you enabled the Blueprint functionality for Free for Teacher accounts. I use Blueprint at my university and for instructors like myself that have multiple versions of a course (for various reasons), the ability to push changes from the parent course to all of the children courses is a HUGE time saver rather than having to update each individual course (e.g. altering a quiz question). I need the same functionality for my Free For Teacher account where I also have multiple versions of the same course, so please consider turning this feature on.

[KevinMeredith]

Hi @info71,

Because Canvas Free-for-Teacher provides course-level access and not administrator-level functionality, the Blueprint course feature is unavailable in FFT environments. This is a Canvas permission needed to be granted/customized for an account (by default by an admin), and we leave it off because FFT is not centrally managed by an institutional admin. We leave this as functionality for paid accounts.

Thanks.

[info71]

Thanks for the info. I technically understand the scenario, but would recommend you reconsider turning it on for FFT. It would empower instructors and they can decide on their own whether or not to use it.

[JenniferKelly1]

@scottdennis Hi! looking for more information on the "Wrap event titles in Calendar month view (ON) - Show calendar events in the month view on multiple lines if the title doesn't fit on a single line." I can't seem to find it in any of the guides or on a forum search.

[KristinL]

hi @JenniferKelly1  -- This feature was first announced in 2016. However, in 2022, the Canvas interface was updated to place each event on a single line and then have a tooltip (text that displays when the cursor hovers over the title) to show the full event title. I hope this helps!