Community

Canvas has a tool for viewing Page history edits - having a way to view Quiz history edits is just as useful. I made the unfortunate mistake of editing a quiz that was a good one, and those questions and answers - and all that hard work is apparently gone. If this were a page, there would be little problem - I could duplicate the new and restore the old. But with Quiz editing, apparently a change is "forever". ... View more

Hi Stacy, apparently the idea is still alive - maybe your colleagues can chime in and vote too?! ... View more

Thank you :Laura, you understand the issue well, and how traditional browser bookmarking or website "social" bookmarking is a very poor "work-around" for what should be a standard feature. ... View more

Hi Sharmen, have you shared this voting opportunity with your colleagues? Maybe if enough votes come in, the Canvas team will work on this! ... View more

Consider having your colleagues vote on this - maybe share the url with them! ... View more

Regular bookmarks require students to work on the same computer, since they are saved with the browser on the hard drive. Students often bounce from computer labs to their home computer, so traditional bookmarking wouldn't help.. In addition, these bookmarks must be managed. For several classes that a student may work on several times each during the week, the number of bookmarks increases dramatically - they must be named properly, or previous ones deleted. It is possible to use a third party website to bookmark - but then students would have to log into Canvas AND another website. This might not seem like that much extra work, but understand the greater context: There is the very well known benefit that many experience while reading Kindle books. It is super simple to add bookmarks, and later to return to them - and they travel with the book/software - independent of device. Imagine, similarly, that whatever Canvas course you are in, on whatever device, the module page you are on can be bookmarked - maybe by clicking a star or by pressing a keyboard shortcut. After your next session, you may bookmark another page and the previous bookmark is removed. That is the idea with this. The bookmark is IN the canvas app, and instantly accessible, and requires no management. ... View more

Hi Eric, Thanks for your response. Yes, I am going to explore module requirements - and for the time being, advise students to CTRL+D and bookmark the page. (This browser bookmarking is inconvenient, works most easily when students are using a single computer, and is of limited value for a student with multiple Canvas courses). As for the complexity of the imagined bookmarking tool - Kindle/Amazon has been doing it for years, I don't see their software/apps as being very sophisticated. I know Canvas is far more sophisticated, but I suppose - that is just what makes adding a "simple" feature like this all the more complicated. In terms of Navigation - our school is promoting a mostly linear use of Canvas: All required activities (and content) will appear in sequence in the Module pages. This way students are less likely to miss something. This strategy is why I am so keen on the idea of bookmarking. Thank you for your feedback! ... View more

This idea about bookmarks and bookmarking is a good one.   Our school encourages instructors to use Canvas to present content and assignments in an linear fashion via the page modules. Much of this content does involve reading, as well as embedded videos. Canvas is also designed to be used, and is used, in a non-linear way: Students might attend to a discussion, re-read an announcement, check a grade, use the in-box feature, and THEN attempt to return the last Module page read.   (1) So how does a student quickly return to the module page he/she left off at when in the midst of reading a module - perhaps a day or two prior?   (2) Also, how does a student quickly return to the module page just read moments ago - after he or she has attended to one of the other Canvas features like discussions, announcements, etc...?   Now the work-around I use is what many instructors probably do: I open up a second instance of Canvas in another tab. This, however, addresses only issue #2 above, and not issue #1, and it is a work-around (requiring additional computer skills and management/conscientiousness); it is not a simple Canvas feature - which it should be (think "Kindle" bookmark).   How difficult could it possibly be to create a Bookmarking feature? Call it Pinning, Starring, Favorit-ing, Flagging if you want - the technology has been in wide use for years. There could be one "hard" bookmark. The student can mark any module page. Once the student reads ahead and marks another page, the previous marked page is unmarked.   Don't we want students to quickly be able to return where they have left off? ... View more