Embedding Content in Canvas, or: How I Learned to Stop Being Bland and Make My Content Amazing

[DrNufer]

I'm excited to be presenting at InstructureCon 2018. It's one of my very favorite conferences, and this year I get to present a very fun topic: how to embed content into Canvas like a rockstar (or ringmaster). We will discover the latest educational technology products and strategies to improve student experience by bringing teaching to life and fostering a community of learning within the classroom.

Embedding content into Canvas is when you place code from another website into your course content page. This session will showcase educational technology platforms that you can use to enhance your online and blended course content. Learn about the latest developments in the ed tech community and discover a world of free and cheap (with educator discounts) resources. Also, learn about some of the more professional platforms and interactions that are available through licensing. You will come away from this webinar both informed and inspired.

Learning Objectives:
1. Discover various ed tech platforms and resources that you can use in your courses
2. Learn how to integrate ed tech tools into Canvas

Thursday, July 26 at 10am in Gray's Peak 1

Session Details 

As part of the Canvas Community, I would also like to invite you to collaborate with me on this presentation. I would very much appreciate comments on this blog post: are there any ed tech platforms that you use that you think are awesome and worth sharing or is there anything that you would like to explore? I would be happy to research and cover the interests of the community as I refine this presentation.

Photo by John Schnobrich on Unsplash

[laurakgibbs]

I am so glad you are bringing the SEAN NUFER ROADSHOW to InstructureCon!!! And I will be there IN PERSON to cheer you on, snufer‌! Yay!!!

I just got my summer project up and running Canvas with some embedding tricks, and I've vowed to write up a how-to page for everything I am doing by way of embedding/redirect tool in this space:

StoryLab 

So now, as I add new Pages that have any kind of embedded content or similar Twitter magic, I will add a how-to page. Here are the how-to pages so far 

How-To Index: StoryLab 

I wonder what new things I will get to learn about from you this summer!!! 🙂

[DrNufer]

laurakgibbs, we should definitely connect before InstCon to share ideas.  I'm hot off an extended FMLA leave, so still getting my bearings as I rub my eyes squinting into the beaming reality of the real world again.  But I'll reach out in a week or two and try to pick your brain.  I'm glad you'll be at the conference!

[laurakgibbs]

It would be great to brainstorm -- anytime! I'm really excited about this conference too. It's such a great opportunity for me. Summer is always fun, and this will make it even more fun! 🙂

[kmeeusen]

Still getting my bearings as I rub my eyes squinting into the beaming reality of the real world again. 

LOL, Sean, and what an accurate turn of phrase for that common experience.

See you at the InstCarn!

[paul]

What an awesome topic to see presented snufer‌   You might also be interested in how the Grav CMS can be used 'chromelessly' (i.e. without standard global website elements) to embed not only Grav-based content but other content/elements that Canvas does not usually permit.

If the above sounds of interest I've shared more info here: https://community.canvaslms.com/thread/20154-partnering-a-modern-flat-file-cms-with-canvas 

Thanks,

Paul

[DrNufer]

That does sound interesting, and it looks useful on the demo course on that post.  I'll review your links and check it out some more.  

[Bobby2]

Great conversation starter snufer. Lucky conference attendees! I hope your session is recorded for those of us Down Under. 

As a Canvas Newbie I feel a tad unqualified to share bells and whistles BUT I love the simplicity and gloriousness of embedding the loveliness of padlet and Sway. 

Following this discussion with great interest!

[DrNufer]

Bummer that you'll miss out.  I hope you can attend an InstCon sometime; they're amazing events.  stefaniesanders, do you know who we can ask about which sessions will be streamed or recorded?

We have had tremendous success embedding padlet and Sway into our courses, so I'll definitely share some of those ideas with people.  

[Stef_retired]

snufer‌, thanks for tagging me; you've come to the right place. 🙂 All InstructureCon sessions are recorded, and the Instructure-led keynotes will be live-streamed. (Here's the InstructureCon 2017 video archive.) As to whether other sessions might be streamed, that's still TBD.

[awilliams]

If you aren't able to attend the conference in person (I myself will be participating remotely), we have some more goodies in store for you. Stay tuned

[Bobby2]

You have just made my day awilliams!

[awilliams]

Formal blog post isn't up yet but laurakgibbs‌ has been creating an amazing resource for this over at The InstCon Canvas Course Challenge!‌ Her course, InstCon Remote Control: InstCon Remote Control, will be the primary resource for all of us remote participants. It is already filled with great content and activities.

[awilliams]

Feel free to spread this far and wide. More outreach and info to come.

[DrNufer]

It's not a party without awilliams! 

[DrNufer]

I meant to post a comment and am just realizing that I never did so.  I wanted to list off the platforms that I am thinking of showcasing.  In terms of embedding content, these seem to be the low hanging fruit, and I want to make sure that this session is beneficial for new adopters, but also useful for the veteran Canvas users.  Here are some good platforms we can cover:  

YouTube	Prezi	Sway
Pinterest	Twitter	Facebook (posts and videos)
News articles and videos	EdPuzzle	Voicethread
Thinglink	Infographics (easel.ly, infogr.am, piktochart, visme)	Vimeo
H5P	Padlet	Canva
Poll Everywhere	GoAnimate, Moovly, or Powtoon	iSpring
Quizlet, Kahoot!, or Quizzizz	Nearpod	Panopto or screencast-o-matic
Flipgrid

I know that sounds like a lot, but I'll whittle it down.  Even so, I expect that the presentation will gain momentum.  I'll dedicate a good amount of time up front discussing the concept of html and embed code, then I'll walk through how to find embed code and how to place it on a Canvas page.  Then I'll demonstrate embedding several sources into a Canvas course.  Once we get the hang of embedding then I'll progress through various platforms at a more rapid pace.

I created a course that I will use for the session.  It's a work in progress, but feel free to take a peek:

InstructureCarn 

In addition to commenting here on this blog, if you are interested in offering an opinion about which platforms are covered, then you are welcome to participate in the activity below.  

PollEv.com/chitownr

[laurakgibbs]

snufer‌ this is so cool! I don't know if you have followed the news about Twitter widgets: they are discontinuing support for all the old widgets (the ones made through the configuration panel under Settings) as of sometime in July; they've made the new system for creating widgets at publish.twitter.com really easy to use, but here's the bad news: no more hashtag widgets. Argh! 

Anyway, I've updated all my Twitter4Canvas step by step stuff and examples here:

Twitter4Canvas Home

I'm so frustrated about the demise of the hashtag widgets; apparently there are some WordPress plug-ins that will continue to work (although I'm not sure about that since the reason Twitter is discontinuing the hashtag widgets has to do with their support for the dynamic search that made the hashtag widgets possible). 

But it is what it is: Twitter accounts, Twitter lists, Moments, etc. still work. I converted my hashtag widgets to Moments just as an experiment back in the spring, so now I am glad that I did! 

Anyway, something to be aware of. 

I guess the upside is that Twitter has made a real commitment to this new widget system, so hopefully it will keep going strong for at least a few years to come!

[DrNufer]

That's a bummer, but I really hope we get a sustainable solution in place.  I'm going to go ahead and cross twitter off.  I think that your blog and the Canvas community is a better platform for showcasing that tool in Canvas.

[laurakgibbs]

Yeah, the ones like Twitter that require an extra step because of the javascript can definitely be intimidating at first! For people who are Twitter users, it's worth it, but if people don't use Twitter already, it's not the first way to plunge into embedding.

I just added a YouTube Playlist to my StoryLab demo course, with notes about how to do Playlists! 🙂

YouTube Playlist: StoryLab 

This folklore project is perfect for demos because it involves texts and images and audio/video. Yay!

[awilliams]

I just want to put in a plug for one of my favorite Community-created collaborative resources, Course Design Resource Index (Collaboration)‌.

[Bobby2]

A few more gems snufer. 

Opinion Stage, Desmos, Histography and Jigsaw Planet embed beautifully. 

Opinion Stage: Create Polls, Quizzes, Lists and more  

Desmos | Beautiful, Free Math  

https://histography.io/  

Jigsaw Planet - Free Online Jigsaw Puzzles  

[drbjbagwell]

This is my first year to attend and I am SO EXCITED! I am enjoying finding my way around all the content here as well as ALL the 'trailers' for the upcoming InstructureCarn in Keystone!

[akinsey]

I'm pretty excited about this session! You may want to look at FlipGrid - today they made all their educator licenses free, so we have access to all the tools!

[DrNufer]

That's awesome, and I didn't see the announcement.  Thanks for sharing.  I added Flipgrid to my post above. 

[laurakgibbs]

AND they are prorating refunds for everybody who did have paid accounts: pretty amazing!

[DrNufer]

This is how technologies should lay out their business models.  Make a really cool product that's freely available in the education market that students will want to continue using (and start paying for) once they're graduated and in careers.  Teaching and learning should be a social experience that facilitates interaction.

[laurakgibbs]

You have such a great capacity for using lots of different tools, snufer‌, while I am more easily overwhelmed, so I am not always quick to use a new tool... but one of the reasons I got into Flipgrid was that I was so impressed by the way Flipgrid was engaging with users across social media: you could tell they were totally curious in finding out how people were using their product, sharing ideas that they liked, answering people's questions, brainstorming with people about possible uses. Both Padlet and Flipgrid do a fantastic job of communicating with their users. For me, Padlet and Flipgrid are real standouts that way, and their proactive, public engagement is a big part of why I added on those two tools over the past couple of years, and I'm really glad that both of them are so easy to use in Canvas.

I'm also eager to see the new dashboard for Flipgrid that is coming on August 1 so that (I hope!) we can have open boards again; it sounds like they had to do this password thing now as part of the Microsoft integration, and the messages I got back at Twitter made it sound like the open boards will be coming back when the integration is complete and the new dashboard comes out. I was not the only one complaining about the way our open grids are now password-protected, but the people at Flipgrid totally understood our frustration, and I think they have a solution coming. Fingers crossed!

[DrNufer]

I don't know if people are still following this thread, but after a few weeks of contemplating and chatting with others, this is my shortlist for embedded sources (no particular order):

• YouTube
• Sway
• Thinglink
• Flipgrid
• EdPuzzle
• H5P
• Poll Everywhere
• Padlet
• Quizlet, Kahoot!, or Quizzizz

That gives me a good sample to choose from.  I need to balance between not overwhelming people who are new to embedding and html, but keeping it interesting and showcasing fun ed tech for people who might already be familiar with this topic.  Plus those resources are freemium.  

[Bobby2]

snufera super SIMPLE one is Answer Garden. Embeds nicely. Don't need an account. FREE!

It hooks newbies in nicely.

[DrNufer]

That looks interesting. Maybe I should demo that as part of the presentation. I’m planning on using Kahoot! during the session to engage the audience. 

[Bobby2]

Kahoot is a great one for hooking peeps in. A bit of a WOW moment sometimes. 

[laurakgibbs]

snufer‌ your presentation is a must-see for me, so I will definitely be there, and if there is anything you need an audience member to be ready to do during the presentation, just let me know and I will be there to do it. 🙂

[Bobby2]

laurakgibbsyou are just asking to wear the funny hat there! Audience participation risker - love it. 

[laurakgibbs]

Ha ha, you've got me figured out,  @Bobby2 ‌ ... since I'm doing this panda-drone thing, I actually got myself a propeller hat already. 🙂

[kmeeusen]

Oh man, laurakgibbs I want a propeller hat! I haven't seen one of those in more than 50 years!

So I checked, and guess what I found: Nerds Animal House Multi-Color Student Orange Bead Propeller Hat Cap Accessory - Walmart.com 

Now we can all wear them to InstCon. We will be sooooooooo cool!

Kelley

[kmeeusen]

And, for throwback Tuesday................................

I really did have a couple of these back in the day!

[laurakgibbs]

Ha ha, this is so great! I was glad I could find it online; I searched on propeller hat and then found that "propeller beanie" is also a thing. 🙂

[DrNufer]

Shoot, I was brainstorming with my team yesterday, trying to figure out what would be a fun prize if I were to do some Kahoot! competition.  I just couldn't come up with anything good.  King sized snickers bars?  We're going to have plenty of sweets and food there.  Cotton candy?  Again, too much sweet.  Some branded merch from my institution?  Who honestly wants clutter with another institution's logo on it - especially when we'll get our choice of cool vendor stuff.  

Nerds Animal House Multi-Color Student Orange Bead Propeller Hat Cap Accessory - Walmart.com 

This.  This is what people will want.  Thanks  @kmeeusen !

[laurakgibbs]

Fabulous!!! 🙂

[kmeeusen]

I know snufer , they are just that cool!

I found a site where you can order customizable promotional propeller beanies. Of course, the challenge then is what to brand them with!

WaDaYaNeed?com

Better save one for me, my friend!

Kelley