Upload an image directly to a discussion as a student

[seth]

This idea has been developed and deployed to Canvas

As a student, I want to be able to upload an image directly to a discussion. I can only do this today using a cludgy, two-step workaround: (1) upload the image to my personal files, then (2) use the content-picker in the discussion-response window to select the image from my files. Instructors can upload images directly to discussions. Students can upload images directly to other parts of Canvas. Seems odd that this use case requires a workaround.

transferred from the old Community
Originally posted by: Sunny Washington
Thank you especially for contributions by: T Beasley, Stefanie Sanders

Comments from Instructure

This is now completed for mobile and web.

For more information, please read through the following release notes:

Canvas Student Release Notes (iOS 6.3) 

Canvas Student Release Notes (Android 6.3) 

https://community.canvaslms.com/docs/DOC-15857-canvas-release-notes-2018-11-17 

[Jeff_F]

This term a few instructors are piloting Yellowdig and this permits students to attach images directly to a post.   Students are definitely enjoying the ease of creating visually interesting content. 

Interested?  Below is an example of how to add images automatically...  the same can be done for videos.

https://www.yellowdig.com/resources/images/home/post_create.gif 

[khirschmann1]

This is actually an almost 4 year old proposal.  It was requested in the previous community and essentially ignored.  For an idea that has been identified as the "highest priority" among discussion board items, and that it might only take a few days to implement, it seems pretty incomprehensible that it is still not only an open idea, but not even currently in development.

[kona]

khirschmann‌, where does it say that it might only take a few days to implement? Sorry, I'm scrolling through and I couldn't find that conversation in the mix of everything.

[khirschmann1]

At the very top in the October 2015 update it says, "Still, rather than taking a few minutes to make it happen, it might take a few days to make it happen, including QA time, so it's not a massive project to implement."

[kona]

Got it! Thanks!

[adam_zolkover]

I don't want to keep beating on this drum, but I recently saw a demo of Instructure's corporate LMS, Bridge. The HTML editor built into Bridge allows users to upload images via drag-and-drop onto the editor pane. This is the functionality we need for students uploading images to discussion forums.

For Canvas courses in my department, we have a page, and a three-minute video, dedicated to teaching learners how to upload image files to Canvas, and then include them in their posts. And yet we have a contingent of students in every class for whom the process is too complicated. This is not okay. It's not good for learning, and it's not good for attrition rates. If Bridge can fix this problem (and if Medium, Storify, WordPress, and most other content-creation platforms can fix this problem), surely it's something that can be addressed in Canvas.

[laurakgibbs]

Oh, that is very interesting about Bridge having that capability. Thank you for sharing that info here! There are a lot of reasons why I don't use Canvas discussion boards, but this is definitely one of them. Instead, my students are all blogging, and their blogs are FULL of images. Being able to work together with text and image is one of the greatest features of writing for the web; I hope Canvas will implement this feature soon.

[khirschmann1]

Great points Adam.  I think it's about time that Instructure prioritize this.

[steve_simpson]

I don't think anybody is manning the helm on this.  In our discussions with Canvas, they say that students already have this ability.  Therefore, this thread and our collective frustration are unfounded.  

[laurakgibbs]

I'm not sure I understand: students can insert images but they have to do so in this incredibly clumsy way of uploading the image as a file and then inserting the image file in the discussion content editor.

Is that not correct? The problem is that having to upload as a file and then insert is much too convoluted.