Implementing private journals into Canvas

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Journaling (reflective writing exercise) has several values: 1) encourages students/to reflect on their learning, 2) allows self-discovery, 3) enables teacher to really learn about students’ feelings towards task and how they are making sense of the experience or materials, 4) relieves the pressure of having to worry about correctness (the style I usually suggest for my trainees is semi-formal). It also helps if the journals are made private (accessible only to student and teacher) to make sure students understand that this task is different from asynchronous discussion which is already available on Canvas.

Private journals are hard to create though on Canvas. In the current system, one has to create group sets (e.g Private Journals) under “People” and assign students one by one. Then under discussion, a new discussion for each topic (Private Journal 1, Private Journal 2…) must be created, and importantly one should also remember to check “this is group discussion” (private journals etc) to make them private before saving…This process can be cumbersome  

I am wondering if Canvas can add a new component called “Journals” with privacy settings

12 Comments
Stef_retired
Instructure Alumni
Instructure Alumni
Status changed to: Open
 
DonVandeWalle
Community Explorer

This spring (2021), I am teaching two sections of a course for the first time since our university switch from Blackboard to CANVAS

The switched from Blackboard to CANVAS has produced the following major headache---- The lack of a dedicated journal function that students can use every week ----

I  spent many hours online searching with every keyword configuration possible trying to find a student “journal” function in CANVAS similar to that available in Blackboard ---- I thought, “Surely, such a basic and useful function must be buried somewhere.”

WRONG ---- Instead of finding even a basic journal function, all I found were 100s of posts spread over multiple years decrying the lack of a dedicated journal function. I also found suggestions for multiple workarounds to create a pseudo-journal ----  

The writer of the original post does an excellent job of describing the many headaches and problems that entail these pseudo-journal workarounds ---- All of the workarounds require faculty to waste time creating an inferior alternative, and also often require spending time training students on how to use the workaround, such as the assignment resubmission nightmare-ordeal ----

It seems bizarre that after so many years, with so many online posts about the lack of a CANVAS journal function, that this lack of such a fundamental function continues

How can we get a proper journal function added to CANVAS for Fall 2021?

Thank you ----

Don Vandewalle

Southern Methodist University

Cox School of Business

MatthewHall1
Community Member

As a team of product designers and LD's we've also been working on this same issue across a range of courses, and have come up with an LTI solution, called The Learning Journal. It was an attempt to cut through the administrative burden of other people's workarounds and find a solution that works, consistently and easily and was designed for student outcomes and to ease teacher workloads. 

The tool enables in-context engagement with course material, the ability to recall the data to edit/update a response in relation to new material (perfect for metacognitive learning), the ability to export all or select entries to pdf and also the ability to submit journal entries as assessments via Gradebook. Students can also create public or private entries and there is longevity of data access beyond a single course, so global reflections upon school values, say, can be gathered year on year.

The facilitator side of the tool can also be used to create templates, add tables, images, etc for the learner to respond to.

The product is still in a deployable phase and we have a number of clients using it across Australia. Would be happy to have a chat with you further or show you a demo.

Best, 
Dr Matthew Hall
www.thelearningjournal.co
matthew.hall@curio.co

KaiHoettges
Community Member

On Blackboard we used the journal function for students to keep lab logbooks to report lab results, progress and thoughts on their individual projects.  The logbooks can be seen and commented on by supervisors for formative feedback (and a final mark at the end of the project). With the change to Canvas, we had to revert to paper logbooks. With Covid lockdown this year we could not use/mark the paper logbooks getting a working digital alternative would be great for us. We run ~300 projects every year so most workarounds are not really feasible for us.

DonVandeWalle
Community Explorer

FROM: Don Vandewalle at Southern Methodist University (SMU) in Dallas, Texas, USA

SUBJECT: SUCCESS ON ADDING A JOURNAL FUNCTION via CURIO

We have found a fully functional journal product to use with CANVAS ----

For some background, in May of 2021, I posted detailed comments about my surprise and disappointment that CANVAS did not offer a journal function and also described the nightmare of attempting various bootleg operations.

On May 25, 2021, Matthew Hall of CURIO published a post indicating that his team in Melbourne, Australia had developed a full capacity LTI solution called the Learning Journal. In July, I contacted Matt about their LTI. His team worked with my team to add the LTI to a graduate EMBA organizational behavior course that I teach at Southern Methodist University.

As of August 28, 2021, we have CURIO’s Learning Journal working as a fully functional journal that students use every week for writing how they are integrating course content at work. Students can update the same journal writing stream during the entire semester, and I can provide feedback comments at any time.

If you’re interested in adding a fully functional journal to the CANVAS platform, I strongly recommend that you contact Matt and his team at:

Dr Matthew Hall
www.thelearningjournal.co
matthew.hall@curio.co
sultsch
Community Explorer

Yes we need this and now

sultsch
Community Explorer

Yes we need this and now

pcharland
Community Member

I'm setting up my spring class with personal journals right now and was hoping to see some movement on this!

Seema949
Community Participant

Our university is currently evaluating Canvas as we considering changing from Blackboard to another LMS.  The lack of a journal function has already come up as a drawback in Canvas.  As others have stated in the community forum, reflection is an essential part of learning, and many of our online courses currently utilize the journal tool in Blackboard as a space for student reflection.  

Considering the number of comments and requests for this in the community,  it's surprising and disappointing that Canvas still does not offer a built-in journal.  

LoganGaz
Community Member

Really think this is a simple win! Please Canvas give us a Journal function for private Journals as well as group reflection. Many many people want this. Thanks 

ashleya2
Community Participant

I'd love a function that works inside the page. We have programmed text areas that use browser storage, but the obvious problem there is that if you clear your browser data, that goes away.

If there were a simple text area that used persistent storage and could be accessed inside the page, that would be ace.

ProductPanda
Instructure
Instructure
Status changed to: Archived
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As part of the new Ideas & Themes process, all ideas in Idea Conversations were reviewed by the Product Team. Any Idea that was associated with an identified theme was moved to the new Idea & Themes space. Any Idea that was not part of the move is being marked as Archived. This will preserve the history of the conversations while also letting Community members know that Instructure will not explore the request at this time.