Student journals

[borland1]

I want to assign an ongoing weekly journal to students that will be graded at the end of the semester. I want students to be able to add to it each week, so that I can see they are keeping up with it. I only want me and the student to be able to access it. What is the best way to do this? I do not want to have each entry be a separate submission, rather I want it to be more like a blog, with newer entries at the top and each earlier entry following. Is there an easy way to do this? I think the students would like to be able to use Google Docs and I know there is a tie-in--is there a mechanism to do it this way?

[kona]

 @borland1 , greetings! Since this is an ongoing assignment and you mentioned the students wanting to use Google docs, my thought is to have the students submit the link to their Google Doc to an assignment, so that way you'd have the link. Then they could update it whenever they wanted and you could click on the link and review it any time you wanted. 

Kona

[ryoungblood]

I think it's a really great idea, I feel that it is like self therapy. Students today are really going through a lot! I strongly believe that this will help them in the long run, especially by getting through their situations. Everyone has a story to tell, but no one is really there to listen. Great job on the journal idea for the students.

[venitk]

You could assign each student to their own group (so, a group of one). Then create a discussion (called something like Weekly Journal) that's tied to that group. Students access that discussion to leave their journal entry. The benefit for this over a google doc is it could be tied directly to the gradebook, and you can comment back to the student if you ever feel the need. Everything will also be timestamped, so they can't BS through a dozen journal entries at the end of the semester and then turn it in. The downside is you wouldn't be able to assign a due date within the discussion for each week, but that could be a page with a to-do date or a calendar event.

[DonVandeWalle]

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 ----  

What boggles my mind about this thread is how much time so many dedicated faculty are having to waste to create these byzantine workarounds. All of these 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 (Instead of having faculty spending so much precious time creating the pseudo-journal alternatives?