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June 11, 2026 - A few extra Brisk features
June 11, 2026 - A few extra Brisk features
Our last installment for the 2025-26 year is here! Today I've got a couple of features in Brisk that are not necessarily "comparisons" to Magic School, but they are hopefully useful to you!
CLASSES - It is very easy to create classes in Brisk and have students join via a link. From the homepage, click on your account profile and choose "Manage Classes" from the drop-down menu. Use the three dot menu on the upper right to Create new classes and then the three dot menu next to the class to copy the class code. You can post that in Canvas the first time you have students do something in Brisk, and you'll be able to track all their work and engagement.
BUNDLES - In Brisk, you can create a "bundle" with up to three components in it. The main restriction is you can only have one interactive "Engage" activity. A common way to bundle is to have a preparation/resource combined with an interactive "engage" activity and a check for understanding "assess" type activity. You can do this right from the get go when you're looking at Brisk's initial suggestions or you can build a bundle off one activity/product you already have.
When you're in the initial Brisk Next screen, if you see three things you want to bundle, you can just hover over the plus sign and click on "Add to Bundle" once that pops up. You can add up to three products.
If you have a single product already made that you want to expand on, go into your library from the home screen. Find the activity in your list and click on it. It will take you to a page with suggestions on what to add to the bundle. I used the behavioral science expert character chat from the other day and it gave me suggestions in three groups: "For students who need more support", "More ways to teach...", and "Add a check for understanding". Using this method, you could create differentiated bundles for different groups of students.
BATCH FEEDBACK - Last week we looked at writing feedback for the students to interact with. Batch Feedback is a tool that you can use as a teacher to look at a group of writings quickly. You can import student writings in a variety of formats. You can pull right from Google Drive (where files are stored if you make a Google Assignment in Canvas!) and then put it in the right class, and choose your feedback type (Glows & Grows, Next Steps, Rubric Criteria, Rubric Scoring). Are you just looking for some informal, general feedback for the class on what overall seems to be going well and what needs work? Glows and Grows. Are you mid writing process and want to direct them generally down the process? Next Steps. Do you want it to actually tell you how well they're meeting the criteria of a rubric or actually give them what it thinks their score should be? Rubric Criteria or Scoring. Give it a rubric so it knows what you're looking for, and create the assignment.
IMPORTANT - This should never be used as an alternative to teacher grading. But, it can be a good place to start or used as informational feedback that isn't used as as grade.
Once it runs your feedback, only you as the teacher will see it. I ran a glows & grows version and it gave me 5 different feedback themes to look at. It starts with a brief summary statement, as you can see on the left. From there, you can hover over that to see more info or to get "Next Ideas". Clicking on that will start the whole process over and give you more suggestions for resources and activities to grow their writing. Keep in mind this is feedback based on all entries and for teacher use as formative assessment to inform next steps in instruction. It's not individually focused at all. The same goes for "Rubric Criteria" - it is still general feedback, just specifically divided by the criteria in a supplied rubric.
When I ran the same batch under "Rubric Scoring", it did assign specific scores to each submission but the written feedback was still generalized to the group. I will say you should import a rubric with specific point values, not ranges, as it will not see that nuance.
WHITEBOARD BOOST ACTIVITIES - This is Brisk's latest addition. Rather than take up a ton of space here, I'm just going to direct you to their blog post on this tool. TLDR - Think of it as a way to let them show their thinking/learning visually while working through a set of questions you've set up for them. The built in AI allows them to "Check work" and "Get help" so they will not get stuck while doing the practice. As a teacher you will again see general insights into their work as a whole and suggestions for next steps. You can edit the questions, add images, etc.
In the blog post, I particularly like that they've given examples for just about every content area.
As always, keep playing! :)
June 9, 2026 - Tool comparison #4 - Chat Activities
June 9, 2026 - Tool comparison #4 - Chat Activities
Another tool mentioned from Magic School was Raina - the built in chatbot. It can be used by teachers to work through ideas. In Brisk, that function doesn't have a name exactly, but it is always present in a sidebar once you start working in the platform. You can continue to tweak ideas and it will often ask you specific questions to help you/it hone in on what you really want.
In the student tools in Magic School, there was also a chatbot creator where you could give it all the guidelines for a chatbot with which to have your students interact. One limitation that kept me from using this in Spanish is that you had to build it from the ground up. I found the results to be somewhat aimless with no real objectives, and in Spanish, I found it suggested too many ways to continue the conversation, leaving little thinking to the students.
Enter Chatbots in Brisk. If you go directly to that function, it will be called "Character Chat". You can make it into whatever you want - an actual historical figure, a character from a book, a subject matter expert, etc. If you go in with a general idea of what you're trying to cover, it may also suggest what amounts to the character chat, but in the form of a debate coach or a topic tutor. What's so helpful here is that based on what you prompt, it creates learning objectives that students have to hit before it will end the chat (which you can let students see or not), and gives itself guardrails and scaffolding rules to make sure it's not giving answers to students or getting off topic. I also love thatinstead of incessantly prompting them with options for their next input, it ask a question and waits for a response. (For the record, I've tried typing "I don't know" - it used its own scaffolding rules to nudge me along towards the comprehension it was trying to get at. It's really quite impressive!)
I created an example today based on a topic in AP Psychology: Biological Bases of Behavior. Brisk came up with three learning objectives based on what I asked, and then I added another three based on the essential questions in AP Classroom. It automatically created guardrails to tell itself that it is a subject matter expert, not a historical figure or literary character. It told itself to avoid discussing personal mental health conditions/diagnoses and to redirect them to talk to a healthcare provider. (Am I alone in wishing more AI reminded its users that it is AI and not a real human?!) The scaffolding included things like offering multiple choice options when students are struggling instead of giving them the answers. It also gave itself instructions on how to challenge students who excel. And as always, you get access to all of their chats as the instructor. (Which it tells them right by the text box.)
Here are two links to this activity: Click on the Student activity to give the chatbot a try from the student side. Click on the Template for teachers to see more detail on how it is set up. (Click on edit to see the learning objectives and scaffolding.)
Again, I encourage you to play around as much as possible. There is so much to explore!
June 5, 2026 - Tool comparison #3 - Writing Feedback
June 5, 2026 - Tool comparison #3 - Writing Feedback
Today we will look at how to get AI generated writing feedback for students. This feature in Magic School was definitely used a lot, and fortunately, Brisk has a variety of way you can do this.
The Writing Feedback tool in Magic School is basically a back and forth "chat" based on the student's copied and pasted writing. To look at an equivalent in Brisk, we're going to take a slightly different route than I've used the last two days. I still started on the website for Brisk, but then clicked on "Quick Create" on the right, and then Boost Student Activity.
Once you're in there, you will see there is a section of activities specifically for Writing. They all function in a similar manner, but the type of activity you choose results in Brisk pushing their thinking in a different way. As these are all Boost activities that you assign to a class, you will have access to all of their chats/feedback.
I've linked my activity for each in case you want to see what they look like.
Writing Coach - I gave this the essay prompt and a copy of the rubric. When you enter that, it creates the learning objectives, AI Guardrails and Scaffolding for the writing tutor, and rather than having students cut and paste their writing into the chatbot, it gives them a blank Google Doc (or a blank Google Slideshow if you prefer) to put the work into. I recommend checking out this document to see everything it came up with. Remember - you can always add, delete and modify what is generated.
What happens here is that the students are given that blank Google Doc and the Brisk writing tutor stays in a panel to the right. They start by typing their work right into the doc and the writing tutor stays there to answer questions and give feedback. It isn't an automatic review/revising function, and students do need to ask questions to get it started. You may need to give them some sample questions to ask, such as "What do you think of my thesis statement?" or "What grammar errors do you see?", etc.
Glows & Grows - For this one I again gave it the rubric and just this prompt:
Students are doing an argumentative essay about integration of modern and traditional medicine. Pick out three things they have done well to compliment, and three things they need to work on. Pick those from the following possibilities: Thesis statement, organization, supporting details, grammar accuracy, use of advanced grammar, vocabulary accuracy, depth of vocabulary usage, cohesion of ideas.
You can again reference this doc to see the objectives, guardrails and scaffolding it came up with. Students again receive a blank document and chat with the chatbot, but this time it automatically responded with Glow and Grow suggestions, and asked a question to continue the conversation.
Next Steps - I used the same prompt and the screen format here is again the same - students receive a blank Google doc with the chatbot on the side. Once they have their writing on the doc, they interact. In this case, it will intentionally give them something to work on and prompt them through a series of questions to work on those next steps for improving the writing.
As I chatted with the chatbot, it helped me think about better concrete examples, then led me how to include the story and the WHY into my essay. It helped me develop the story and decide where to put it in the paragraph. It finally prompted me to revise and then gave feedback on what I added.
Goal Setting - Once again with the same prompt and setup. But this time I started by asking "What do I need to do to make this better?" Brisk put its guardrails to work and responded with this:
Great question! Instead of me telling you what to fix, let's figure it out together. Can you identify three things you think you did well in your essay? For example, did your introduction grab attention, did you use good examples, or did your ideas flow smoothly?
It continues to ask questions to get the student to think, refine and revise.
As we know, if you start from the main page in Brisk, you can have it generate ideas for you from a prompt. I started on the main page of the website by attaching an essay prompt and typing this:
I need a writing tutor for students' responses to the attached prompt. It should help them develop a strong thesis statement, work on language accuracy, organization of the essay and cohesion of ideas.
The "Writing Tutor Chat" it proposed to me the following "Learning Objectives" that the students would need to meet to finish the chat. Keep in mind you can change, delete and add objectives.
Develop a clear, arguable thesis statement that responds directly to the essay prompt.
Organize essay ideas logically with smooth transitions and cohesive paragraph structure.
Revise writing for language accuracy, grammar, and academic tone.
It also gave itself the Guardrails and Scaffolding rules similar to the others shown above. Again, you could add, delete or modify any of this. Students would be able to paste their essay / writing into the chatbot and have it work through the feedback with them.
As we know, there are always more suggestions given when you start from that main page, and in this case it also offered a "Thesis Brainstorming Partner" to help students refine and clarify their thesis. Another great form of writing feedback!
June 2, 2026 - Tool comparison #2 - Rubric Generator
June 2, 2026 - Tool comparison #2 - Rubric Generator
Another tool that was mentioned by staff is the Rubic Generator in Magic School. In Brisk, you can go about this in two different ways: through the website, or by using the Chrome extension over the document for the assignment you want a rubric for.
For my first attempt, I went to the website, pulled in the Google doc of the assignment that I wanted a rubric for, and told it I wanted a rubric, including some extra things that aren't mentioned in the requirements of the video project as things I wanted to be criteria. From there, it gave me the rubric option but also other ideas to go with this assignment, as it always does. One I found interesting was a slideshow to explain the rubric criteria to the class. I chatted with the chatbot for this to add more guidance before having it generate. This is the rubric it came up with: Video rubric. If you look, you'll see that first it wrote the rubric as a long list of paragraphs descriptions of the grading criteria. Once it generates, it does ask if you want any changes. I then told it to make the rubric into a table, which it did quickly. I didn't change any formatting, and you will see it needs a little cleaning up, but it is a great starting point and is already a Google Doc - nothing needs to be cut and paste from another platform.
The second option is going into an assignment document and then using the Brisk Chrome extension and having it create a rubric based on the open document. You will click on the Brisk logo if the extension is active (if not, click on it on your toolbar) and it gives you a menu - choose create. (Notice that there is now a text box here that will get you ideas like the website gives you. Brisk keeps adding features all the time!) From there, you've got a ton of options, and Rubric is right at the top of the Curriculum Essentials section.
IMPORTANT TO NOTE: It will add the rubric right to the document you have open, right where you have your cursor. When I ran my example, I had my cursor in the middle of a paragraph and that is where it threw the rubric the first time!! If you want it in a separate sheet, you may want to go to the website and run it like I explained above.
Once you click on "Create", you can actually select up to three options and have them generate all at once. I just stuck with the rubric generation. Once you click into that, it has you write a prompt. I wrote this: "Cover the requirements mentioned in the document, along with criteria on language accuracy, depth and accuracy of vocabulary usage, and the thesis statement." (The assignment was an argumentative essay in Spanish.) Set your grade level and point scale, and click Brisk it! Scroll down this doc to see what it did with the doc (everything before the rubric) and the extra direction I gave it.
May 29, 2026 - Tool comparison #1 - Multiple Choice Assessment generation
May 29, 2026 - Tool comparison #1 - Multiple Choice Assessment generation
Today we start with "Multiple Choice Quiz / Assessment" in Magic School. When you select this tool, it asks you to give it a topic, choose the grade level, number of questions, number of responses per question and optionally, add a standard to align it to. Once generated, it gives you the option to export in 5 different ways, which you can see in the first screenshot to the left.
On the Brisk website, the first main difference is that you don't pick a tool to start. You can by going into "Quick create", but typically you just type in what you're needing/thinking and it goes from there. (You can also include files, photos and Google Drive files.) I typed in "I need a 10 question multiple choice quiz on cellular respiration" to compare results between this and Magic School, and it gave me the quiz (as a Google form) but then also offered a "pulse check" and "exit ticket". Furthermore, although I asked for an assessment, it still gave me suggestions for preparing (a slideshow, a guided notes sheet and a podcast script) as well as "engage" suggestions (a digital whiteboard activity, a tutor chatbot, and a "hook" activity - which you can look at what that would look like for a student here if you'd like to see what a hook activity is!) I was also able to ask it to reformat the quiz into a doc instead of a form.
Another difference is instead of generating the whole product and then asking you for tweaks, Brisk generates the ideas, allows you to tweak those, ask for more, sharpen the focus, etc. And once you're satisfied with the idea of the product, you can ask it to create the actual product.
A similar tool in Magic School is "YouTube video questions". By importing the transcript from a YouTube video, Magic School will create a multiple choice comprehension quiz. Brisk will do the same (I put the transcript in a Google Doc and attached that to my initial description of what I wanted), while also suggesting, preparation ideas, engagement activities, and other assessment options. I again encourage you to go in and play with Brisk!
May 26, 2026 - Brisk's website platform
May 26, 2026 - Brisk's website platform
As of this fall, we will be moving to Brisk Teaching as our primary educational AI tool next year and discontinuing our premium version of Magic School.
(Gemini and Notebook LM are also still primary tools - Brisk is just the tool that is designed specifically as an aide to teachers.)
Exciting update to Brisk:
Some of you may have read this news and thought "but how will a Chrome extension replace a full platform?". Good news - Brisk now has a full website in addition to their Chrome extension.
The website:
https://app.briskteaching.com/ will be your new hub for using this AI.
What I have loved about this platform is that rather than having to start by picking a tool, you can start with telling it what you want to do. It will then generate multiple options of what it can create for you. It allows you to just type your ideas, attach existing materials, select standards for your lesson, and set the language and grade level.
You can still go directly to a specific type of tool - there is a Quick Create menu where you pick what you want. Or if you're working in the Chrome Extension, you can pick a specific tool from there.
Here is one I just input on the website:
"I need to teach the quadratic equation to freshmen. I want to teach it in an engaging way that builds on their previous knowledge and need some good formative assessment ideas."
It gave me the option of a quadratic equation lesson doc, a quadratic equation slide deck and a quadratic equation podcast script for the first step - Prepare.
For step two (Engage) it offered a Quadratic Equation whiteboard challenge, a quadratic equation tutor chat (tutor chat bot), and a quadratic formula hook scenario (a real-life scenario where the quadratic equation is needed, prompting students to predict how they might solve it.) All of these are "boost" activities where the students interact with the AI.
For the final step, Assess, it offered a quick quiz in Google Forms, an exit ticket, and a spiral review that includes quadratic equation problems along with related prior skills.
You can then have it generate any or all of those, or you can click on "generate more" to see more ideas.
You can also add up to three resources to a "bundle" that can be shared with students. Perhaps a doc explaining the process is bundled with the white board challenge and then the exit ticket.
To the right, there is also a chat window for you. Maybe you realize you forgot an important aspect you want it to include or notice something else unexpected in the results. You can add it there without undoing all the initial work.
Sometimes, the chat window will actually ask you questions to refine what you're looking for.
Once you have it generate an activity (by clicking on Create when you hover over the resource), you can preview the activity as a student would see it and you can edit the parameters.
When you click on Edit once it has opened the Student View, you have the option of tweaking the learning objectives and the activity guidelines. I encourage you to play around with those in an activity to see all there is.
Everything you make can be shared with students and with colleagues.
I will get more into specific tools over the coming weeks, but I encourage you to play around with the website, and if you'd like to get a hands on demo, please grab some time with me in the coming weeks at this link!
May 5, 2026 - Your name from space!!
May 5, 2026 - Your name from space!!
It's AP week 1, so this is going to be super quick! Just a fun little website that crossed my radar from NASA. You can type in your name and it will create an image with your name spelled out in Landsat satellite imagery that resembles the letters of the alphabet. You can save the image as a .png file.
When it generates, you can click on each letter to see what the photo is of and its coordinates. For example, the Josh image on the left includes the following places: J - Karakaya Dam, Turkey / O - Manicouagan Reservoir / S - Rio Chapare, Bolivia / H - Southwestern Kyrgyzstan.
And why not include the Jennifer example as roughly 20% of our staff can use it? 😂
April 28, 2026 - Helping students reflect on AI usage
April 28, 2026 - Helping students reflect on AI usage
I think we can all agree that AI is here to stay. Much like world language teachers went from HATING online translators when they debuted in the late 90s (Yes, I was teaching then and Yes, I had kids using them already!) to teaching kids which sites are the best and how they should use them to build their language instead of replace it, educators are now faced with teaching kids how to responsibly and effectively use a tool that we had no sooner than they did.
One of the most important ways to do this is to help kids change how they think of AI and its uses. To pull them away from having AI do the work and towards having AI be an extra collaborator and tutor.
Today's tool is a free Student Self-Reflection Checklist for Stragetic GenAI Use from AI for Education. You can read about it and download it from their site. They in fact have a whole page of Free AI Resources for school/classroom.
April 14, 2026 - New EduGems to check out
April 14, 2026 - New EduGems to check out
Back in January, I shared a tip on EduGems., a website by Eric Curts that has over 100 pre-built Gemini gems for use in education. Today I want to highlight a few of his recent editions that could hopefully be handy and time-saving for you!
Reminder - when you open one of these gems, you need to type something to activate the prompt.
Reading Level Analyzer (Use it / Copy it)
From Eric: Determine the reading level of a text and help adapt the material as needed to make it appropriate for your students
From Jen after playing around with it: This does so much more than that! It suggests expansion activities and ways to differentiate. It tells you about the complexity of vocabulary and sentence structure. It lets you choose whether you want to simplify, scaffold, or elevate (and more) from your source reading. All while asking you questions to get at what you really want.
Gallery Walk Activity Generator (Use it / Copy it)
From Eric: Design engaging, interactive Gallery Walk activities where students move around the classroom to explore bite-sized texts, images, and primary sources
From Jen after playing around with it: The gem started by asking me about grade level, subject, topic, how many stations, and any additional details I wanted included. It allowed me to refine the stations and add specific topics in. It prompted me at the end to tell it what materials I wanted it to generate. After asking it for stations about HLA research and development and its connection to Wisconsin, it offered and created the map graphic on the left.
Number Talk Activity (Use it / Copy it)
From Eric: Design engaging, 5- to 15-minute daily "Number Talk" routines where students mentally solve a problem and discuss their strategies
From Jen after playing around with it: One for our STEM teachers! I started by giving it a grade level and math topic, and it gave me options on which kind of problems I wanted, and then gave me three options within that. Again, lots of room for refinement, but a super quick way to pull a couple extra practice opportunities together for your students.
I hope you can find something to spark some ideas and save you a little time!
April 9, 2026 - Speedgrader comment filtering in Canvas
April 9, 2026 - Speedgrader comment filtering in Canvas
Whether you're grading an assignment/essay on paper or in Canvas, you are bound to find yourself pointing out the same things and giving the same tips over and over. If you're grading in speedgrader in Canvas, you have the ability to save those comments for reuse. The problem in the past has been that those comments may be different depending on the assignment, and suddenly, like me, you have 54 comments in that library and it's very unmanageable.
For a while now we have had the ability to have it suggest a comment by beginning to type it. But if anyone is like me, that meant you had to remember exactly how you started your comment and my batting average on that was about .250.
Now, Canvas has added a filter to the top and you can see all of your comments, only the comments you've saved within the current course, or only the comments you've saved for this particular assignment. You will find that dropdown once you click on your comment bank (the conversation bubble icon in the right side grading panel.) Once you see the comment you want, just click on it to add it to the comments for the submission you're grading.
To add a new comment, you will click on the same icon and then type your comment in the "Add comment to library" textbox. Click "Add to library" to save it. Once you click that, it will give you a pop-up right away allowing you to add that comment to the submission you're in, keeping you from having to double the work for that one new comment.
March 24, 2026 - BBC Sound Effects
March 24, 2026 - BBC Sound Effects
Today's tip is the BBC Sound Effects site where they have over 30,000 sound effects and recordings that were made/recorded for BBC programming. As long as they are used for non-commercial projects (AKA teacher products and student projects for class), they can be used for free as long as BBC is credited. Most sound clips have a "Show details" option where you can see who recorded it, along with where and when. You can do a full citation, or (and this is from BBC's FAQ page), you can put the following near/on the slide where you use the sound clip:
bbc.co.uk – © copyright [the year goes here] BBC
There are a lot of categories to browse, and a search bar if you know what you're looking for. Most are recordings, not generated sounds, and they're all made for BBC's programming, so they're high quality. Please feel free to share this source with the students!
March 10, 2026 - 123Apps
March 10, 2026 - 123Apps
Hello!! There is A LOT going on at Arrowhead High School right now, so today's tip is a super quick one. 123apps is a website with quick tools for video, audio, PDF and file conversion. There is no login required and tons of tools for each of those file types. When you need a quick crop, conversion or compress (among MANY other things), give it a look!
March 3, 2026 - Clean up your Securly Classroom dashboard
March 3, 2026 - Clean up your Securly Classroom dashboard
Just a quick tip today! If you have a million classes on your dashboard in Securly Classroom, you can get rid of the ones you don't need!
Click on the three dots in any class you want to remove and select "Class settings".
Scroll, down and on the left you will see the option to Archive class. Click that and you are all set! (You can also unarchive classes in the same place if you ever would need to in the future.)
And as a reminder, if you can't tell which courses are your current classes, change the course name in Canvas:
Go into your course and click into Settings.
Change the Name of the course to something you will be able to distinguish from past years that have the same course name. (Don't worry about the course code or anything - just the name matters.)
Be sure you name it something logical. This will also change the name of the course for all of your students/observers.
February 24, 2026 - Nano Banana AI in Slides
February 24, 2026 - Nano Banana AI in Slides
You may have already seen the pop-ups, but Nano Banana, the Gemini powered AI image generator, has become a part of Google Slides. On the right of your slides screen, you will see the banana icon in the side toolbar. When you hover over it, you'll see "Help me visualize". Click on that and put it to work!
You can use this feature to create or modify slides, to create images, or to create infographics. Click on the function you want in the box you see in the first image in this post.
For slide creation, I simply typed "Create an agenda slide for an ACT proctor training with a retro 80s theme". See the image to the right for what it came up with. (And don't be surprised if you see some version of this in a couple of weeks! 😃) You can also use it on an existing slide to refine it or create more slides based off your current slide.
When you click into the image tab, it will again have you describe what you want, but you will also see two options in the lower left of the text box - the first is to select the image ratio, and the second (a small pallette) lets you choose an artistic style, such as watercolor, photography, sketch, etc.
The final tab lets you type in a prompt for it to create an infographic. You can tell it to make an infographic off the information on your slide, or you can ask it to create an infographic of a data set, even if you don't have the actual data. It can go out to Google to pull the information it needs. For example, I typed "Create an infographic in tropical colors comparing the high school graduation rates of South American countries for the year 2019". I gave it no numbers, and I definitely would need to check these "facts" before using it, but the infographic it came up with that I have included her was far more creative and beautiful than anything I'd have come up with on my own!
Remember you can always use what it generates and then use it again to tweak what is now on the slide. I hope you have some fun playing with this tool!
February 17, 2026 - IgniteAI in Canvas Discussions
February 17, 2026 - IgniteAI in Canvas Discussions
Today's tip is another way you can use Canvas's IgniteAI right inside the platform.
If you use Discussions in your class, you will now have two AI options: Insights and Summary. The buttons should show right in your prompt box when you open a discussion.
If you click on "Go to Insights", it will open a new page where you need to click on "Generate Insights" when the new page opens. Once it generates, you will see a column noting whether each student's contribution is relevant or not along with "Evaluation notes" which give a quick explanation as to why each response is relevant to the prompt or not.
When you click on "Open summary", it will give you a summary of multiple posts to give you a big picture view of trends or commonalities in the responses. You can also ask it to focus on a particular part of the responses in its summary.
These AI tools can make Canvas Discussions a quick and easy way to do formative exit tickets or other formative activities where you're looking to get a pulse on the class rather than assess individual students. I hope they help you gain insight while saving time!
February 10, 2026 - A couple of Chrome updates
February 10, 2026 - A couple of Chrome updates
Today's tip is just a handful of new features/updates in Chrome:
You can annotate PDFs right in Chrome and save them with your changes.
You can save a PDF from Chrome directly into your Google Drive without having to download it first.
Hovering over the minimize/maximize buttons will give you a variety of split screen layouts.
To annotate a PDF in Chrome:
Open your PDF in Chrome.
If you are opening your PDF from File Explorer and it is opening in another program, such as Adobe Acrobat, right click on the file in File Explorer and choose Open with / Chrome.
At the top of your PDF, you should see the option to annotate in the form of a squiggly line icon. When you click on that, you'll get a side panel with options to draw, highlight or erase. It also gives you line width options and multiple colors to choose from.
You can use your mouse or a touchscreen to annotate.
Once you've completed your annotations, you can click on the Download icon in the top right and choose "With your changes" to save a new version of the PDF.
To save a PDF directly from Chrome to your Drive without downloading:
This one is simple! The Add to Drive icon is up next to the download icon. It was added with this update.
When you click on this, it also gives you the option to save it with or without your changes (if you've made any annotations).
Layout options:
When you hover over the Minimize/Maximize button on your browser, you will see a variety of multi-screen layout options. Depending on what you have open, you can choose a layout that already shows where each app will go.
If you choose a blank layout, you will need to click on the space in the layout where you want your current Chrome window to go. Then, it will give you the option of all of your other open windows to fill in the rest. You can see on the right (it's tiny, I know!) that I've placed three apps and still have the option of my File Explorer window or my other Chrome browser for that last bottom/right box.
February 3, 2026 - AI generated rubrics in Canvas
February 3, 2026 - AI generated rubrics in Canvas
Welcome to "Enhanced Rubrics" in Canvas! The two big upgrades here are AI created rubrics and the ability to allow students to self-assess using the rubric you put on an assignment.
When using IgniteAI in Canvas for rubric creation, the important thing to remember is that you need to start in the assignment or new quiz to which you want to attach the rubric, NOT in the Rubrics tab. (Keep in mind you can only attach a rubric to an entire new quiz, not to just one essay question.)
Once you have created your assignment, you need to save it and get back to the details screen. Below all of the assignment information, you will the "+Create Rubric" and "Find Rubric" buttons. Click on Create Rubric.
The screen that opens will look quite different (and in my opinion much nicer) than the old rubric creation screen. You still can type in/create your own rubric from scratch (or have it create criteria from existing outcomes in your course), but now you will see the option to "Auto-Generate Criteria". Be sure you set all of your criteria before clicking on the Generate Criteria button in the lower right. Here's what you should set:
Give the rubric a name.
Type - Choose scale to get a rubric with defined criteria for students to read according to the score they receive, and written feedback if you'll provide that individually.
Rating Display - Choose Level if you want the 0-4 type rating and Points if you want to be able assign points.
Rating Order - Your choice. High to low (left to right) or vice versa.
Scoring - Is this a scored rubric or unscored/just for feedback?
Be sure to mark "Use this rubric for assignment grading" if it will count for a grade. Otherwise it will just be for feedback purposes and even if you assign points it won't "count".
It would be valid to leave this unchecked, still assign points, but have that "grade" be simply for feedback for kids!
Grade level - It seems to default to "Higher Education", so be sure to set the grade level.
Number of criteria - You can choose for it to create between 2 and 8 criteria.
Number of ratings - You can also choose between 2 and 8 levels for rating.
Total points - How much will the assignment be worth as a whole?
Enable Range - Click this is you want to be able to assign different point values with in a range, not just a preset number.
Standard/Outcome information - if you know this aligns to standards or outcomes you use, add them here!
Addition prompt information - Give it anything you want it to consider. What to place more emphasis on. General background on the students who will be submitting. What kind of criteria you would like. So many things you can add!
If you have an existing rubric that you don't want to have to type into Canvas, you could give it the titles of the criteria here and see how close it comes. Hopefully you'd just need to clean it up a little instead of typing the whole thing in!
Once you have your criteria set, click on Generate Criteria!
Once generated, you have the option to edit, delete, duplicate or regenerate any criteria.
One thing you will most likely need to edit is the point ranges. It will divide your points into four levels. Unless you are truly working from a mastery grading standpoint, you will most likely need to adjust those to match your grading scale. (As you can see on the left, it's taking the top rating down to 13.34 points out of 20.)
If you've used a range rubric, you can just adjust the top end of any rating category, which will automatically adjust the low end of the rating above it. You can see in the next screenshot how that works.
You can also edit the Criterion name, description, and the descriptions for each rating.
Once you have the rubric to where you want it, you can preview it. It will show you three versions so you can see which would work best for you for grading purposes.
When all is to your liking, click Create Rubric!
Once you have created the rubric, you will still be able to preview it, edit it, delete it or replace it.
Once the rubric is created, you can click on the option to "Enable self assessment". This will allow students to rate themselves on the rubric that is provided. Another great formative opportunity!
January 27, 2026 - Ignite AI in Canvas New Quizzes
January 27, 2026 - Ignite AI in Canvas New Quizzes
That's right, Instructure/Canvas has joined the AI game! I will do future tech tips on other areas where it will become available, but right now we're going to take a look at what it can do in New Quizzes.
As we know, we already have tools like Gemini, Brisk and Magic School to create multiple choice assessments. But, all of those still need to be entered into Canvas if that's where you want to assess them. With the introduction of IgniteAI, that will all be done automatically by the internal AI engine.
To use IgniteAI in New Quizzes:
Click the blue plus button to add new content. You will now see "Generate with AI" at the top of the pop-up. Click on that and you will get the "Question Authoring" screen.
The first thing it will ask for is Source Material. Giving it something to base its questions off is going to give you a much better result when it generates potential test questions.
The first option is to select content from your course. So, if you're already got reference sheets, readings, etc. linked in your course, you can just grab them right here.
You can also just cute and paste text into a text box (20,000 character limit) as the source material it will use. This could be copied text or your own version of what you want to have assessed.
Finally, you can upload files (pdf, docx, or txt) for it to use.
Next it will ask for your topic focus. This is optional, but if you're focusing on one part of a larger topic, this can help it keep itself inside some guardrails.
You will see a box that has "> More options" as the title. You do need to click this to expand it. In there, you will have the ability to select:
Learning Outcomes you've added to your course
Bloom's Taxonomy level of what you want its output to be
Depth of Knowledge level for the questions you want it to make
Language - this will work in world language courses or for ELL students!
Finally, it will ask you what type of question you want it to create, how many, and how many points they should be worth. Currently, Multiple Choice is the only Question Type it is offering. They are planning to expand that to other question options such as true/false, fill in the blank, and essay. But, that is coming down the road.
Once you've added all your options, take your mouse down to the lower right corner to get the "Generate" button to activate.
Once it generates, you have to approve questions before they will be added to a quiz. You can approve them as they are, edit them, or delete them.
January 20, 2026 - Edugems
January 20, 2026 - Edugems
Within Google Gemini, you have the ability to create "Gems". A gem is basically a custom AI shell that you create to "train" that gem to be a pseudo expert/take on a persona. In a typical AI prompt, you have to give it all the background information, like "You are a high school English teacher, teaching mostly juniors and focusing on American literature."
With a Gem, you can save all this background and kind of create your own "bot" that will "stay in character", if you will. Instead of typing your description every time, you could save a gem that knows your teaching profile and you could just activate that and say "Make a sub plan on the beginning of the Crucible". It would already know your context and work from it.
To play with creating Gems, head to gemini.google.com, click on the three bars to expland the left panel, click on Gems and use the premade ones or add your own with the +New Gem button.
Don't feel like you have time for that right now? 🙂 Enter EduGems. This website has been built by Eric Curts and includes Gems that he has created around Curriculum, Literacy, Student Activities, Assessment, Support, and Professional Tasks. He even has a Tutorials page. I encourage you to just visit the site and explore what he has already put out there. You can use any gem he has there or make a copy of it to tweak it to your liking. He is adding new EduGems regularly, so keep visiting!
And don't forget to bundle these tools to work together for you. I used the Jeopardy Game gem under Student Activities, had it export the generated response to Sheets, and then transferred that into the Flippity Quiz Show generator, and voilà, I had an online jeopardy review on Spanish artists to play with students. You have opportunities to edit and tweak along the way, but so much of the groundwork gets done for you!
January 13, 2026 - Prefilled Guided Learning prompts in Gemini
January 13, 2026 - Prefilled Guided Learning prompts in Gemini
We will be talking in the next couple of weeks about more in-depth AI creations that can be shared with your students, but today we're going to look at a quick way to guide the start of their AI usage by giving them a pre-filled Gemini prompt by just giving them a link.
This will take you just seconds to create and can be made ahead of time or on the fly. You just need a way to share the link with students - most likely by linking in Canvas. You could use it as a study resource for them, creating a solid prompt for Gemini to lead them through review. Or you could use it to give them a starting point while allowing for prompt tweaking to see where it takes them. Or you could have them do something with the results and compare what they got with what other classmates got.
In the example I ran, I used the prompt "Explain the important steps in experiment design in science." (Here is the link I created.) I ran that prompt in two different windows, and in both cases, Gemini gave me an analogy before discussing the foundational steps of experiment design. (Screenshots to the right.) Perhaps this could be used as a starting point for creating a visual to synthesize the information in a new way. That is a very specific example, but playing with the link ahead of time could give you some new ideas on how to work with a topic in your class.
To create a guided link:
Open a new tab in Chrome and start your link with this URL: https://gemini.google.com/guided-learning?query=
Add your prompt to the end of that. Include spaces and punctuation. It is not normal in a URL, but Chrome will take care of adding the %20 where you have spaces to make it a functioning URL.
Just hit enter and then copy the link it has transformed it into. Share that link with students to get them started!
January 6, 2026 - AI Transparency Support
January 6, 2026 - AI Transparency Support
In January we're going to focus on some AI tools, and today we have a simple tool that can be used by teachers and students to create transparency about the use of AI in classroom work. transparency.support is a very simple website where AI will create a statement for you to use on assignments and for students (or you) to use on work they have produced.
For teachers:
When you click on the "I'm a Teacher" option, the site asks you to click on the ways that your students are allowed to use AI on an assignment. It will then create an AI Help Statement for you to include on that assignment. For example, when I clicked on the options in the "Revise and Edit" box on the left, I got this statement:
"AI may help you with adjusting tone and suggesting ways to improve."
Is this earth shattering language? No. But, if you look at the site, you will see that it lists a lot of potential uses of AI. This is where it is most helpful when creating the assignment - putting all the options in front of you so you can decide what are are ok with students using it for, and what you are not. It has options under the headings of Plan & Brainstorm, Research & Inquiry, Read & Understand, Draft & Write, Revise & Edit, and Design & Create.
Furthermore, these simple and concrete statements are excellent for including in your Canvas course so that parents/observers will also easily see the AI expectations for your class/assignments.
For students:
Students can also use the site to have it draft a statement for them to include in their work that creates transparency for the teacher as to how they used AI. It also has them check which AI tools they used and add a narrative about their own contribution to the work. Here is a sample of a statement generated for a student:
"I used Gemini to help me with adjusting tone and suggesting ways to improve. I contributed by creating my own visuals and doing the initial draft of the work. I did not have AI create any writing before I had written the whole essay. AI just adjusted my tone and offered suggestions for adding details."
December 16, 2025 - Surveys in New Quizzes
December 16, 2025 - Surveys in New Quizzes
At long last, Canvas had added Surveys into the New Quizzes platform! I know there are a good number of you that have been waiting for this. Here is a quick rundown:
If you still have surveys in Classic Quizzes, you can migrate those to New Quizzes without issue.
You can create graded and ungraded surveys.
A graded survey is NOT a quiz. "Canvas gives this explanation: "Points earned here reflect participation and effort. Responses will not be graded for accuracy."
Surveys can be anonymous or not.
You will be able to see overall info on each question in the Reports tab, while you can see individual results in the Moderate tab. (If your survey is anonymous, individual results will be shown in random order so you can't identify whose responses they are.)
You will be able to collect survey data without students having to leave Canvas.
The following question types are available within a survey: Multiple Choice, Multiple Answer, True/False, Fill in the Blank, Essay, File Upload. You can also add a Stimulus to keep parts of the survey together and related to some other content, and a text block for extra instructions.
Each question can be marked as required or optional.
You will have most of the normal options in Settings such as Shuffle questions, Shuffle answers, One question at a time, Student access code, along with some survey specific tools, such as being able to detect when the same login has done the survey more than once. (It will highlight submissions that are from the same account and it does warn kids that it will happen! [Last screenshot on the left.])
This tool will allow for super easy exit ticket type formative assessment without needing to incorporate extra tools.
To create a survey:
Create a new New Quiz.
Change the Quiz Type in the initial setup to Graded or Ungraded Survey.
Choose whether the survey is anonymous or not. (This cannot be changed after the initial setup.)
These surveys can still have Outcomes aligned to them, so you could also use them as part of your goals work.
December 9, 2025 - Level up your multitasking! 🤓
December 9, 2025 - Level up your multitasking! 🤓
This tip is for those of you that find yourself having to flip between different tabs often while working. In the past, I did share a way to organize various windows on your screen. And that still works, and would be necessary if you're going between a web browser and something else like Microsoft Word. But if you're looking at different Chrome tabs, it means splitting them out to separate windows.
But, recently Chrome has added a built in way to split one Chrome browser window into two tabs. To do so:
When you're in one tab that you want to have open, right click on the other tab you'd like to also view.
You will see there is a new choice - New split view with current tab. When you click on that, you will get the split window without getting a full duplicate of all your bookmarks, the address bar, etc. The screenshot to the right is a little hard to distinguish, but trust me. 😊
Once you're in the split view, you'll have a turquoise icon to the left of the URL address bar. From there, you can separate the view back into two separate tabs, close one or the other, or reverse the order in which it is displaying them.
You can also close out one tab with the x in the bottom corner of the tab.
If you are docked, this could easily give you four open tabs at once if you use the monitor and your laptop as an extended screen.
Nothing earthshattering, but I have used this multiple times a day since discovering it last week. Hopefully it will help you have less clicks in your day!
December 2, 2025 - Help students use AI to PUSH their thinking, not replace it.
December 2, 2025 - Help students use AI to PUSH their thinking, not replace it.
Today I am passing on a resource I found from Tony Vincent that you could potentially use with your students in class to help them learn to use AI the way we all want them to. 😃 It has prompts that students can use after doing their initial work/writing to have AI push them further in their thinking. In includes prompts to refine, reframe and reexamine what they have already done. You can find a much more readable version here!
November 18 (err...20), 2025 - Style Match in Canva
November 18 (err...20), 2025 - Style Match in Canva
This tip is for those of you who are using or dabbling in Canva! They have added a new feature that allows you to take something from their Elements library (where you find clip art, shapes, etc.) and make it stylistically match better with other things already in your design.
I played around with a sample activity they had, and it's really impressive! Why would I use this? Because I need that one more piece of clipart to finish my slide, but I can't find anything that isn't totally different looking from everything else I'm using. It sticks out in a really bad way. Now, you can fix this.
Add all the elements you want to use to your slide.
Click on/Select one that is in the style you want.
Click on the paint roller icon (Style Match) in the floating toolbar to "Copy style".
Click on the element that doesn't fit and watch Canva's AI do its magic.
I've put a couple of screenshots to the right so you can see what it did. I hope you have some fun playing with all the design elements Canva has to offer!
November 11, 2025 - Use Gemini as a study tool
November 11, 2025 - Use Gemini as a study tool
Recently, Google opened up some handy study tools for students under 18 years of age. So, students can now just give Gemini a topic or bring in notes, vocabulary lists, etc. in and ask for Gemini to:
Create a practice quiz
Create flashcards
Create a study guide
The examples to the right show what it gave me when I did the following.
"Give me a practice quiz in English to test my knowledge of this Spanish vocabulary." (And then I pasted in a vocabulary list from Quizlet.)
"Create a set of flashcards on the Bill of Rights." (The black cards are the "question" and the blue are the "answer".)
"Create a study guide on the basics of HLA." (In this case, Gemini produced a text version, giving me the option to export to Docs. Here is that doc. You can see it needs a little cleaning up, but this is a VERY quick way to create study resources!)
You can just type in a topic, copy and paste materials/notes, or attach a Google file for Gemini to work from. (Attach a file by clicking on the Plus sign icon next to "Tools".)
One thing to keep in mind is that Practice Quizzes and Flashcards sets can't be "shared out" like the Doc. You could share a prompt for kids to use, but the quiz and flashcards function within Gemini and can't be shared out with a link from your AHS account.
November 4, 2025 - "Shorthand" in Google Docs
November 4, 2025 - "Shorthand" in Google Docs
First, raise your hand if you know what Shorthand is. 😄
As for the actual tech tip, this will helpful to anyone who finds themself typing the same things over and over again in a Google Doc. Maybe it's a comment you use a lot when grading student submissions. Or a phrase that comes up a lot in your work. Whatever it may be, you can create your own shortcuts in Docs so you don't have to continuously type the whole thing.
In a Doc, click on Tools and then Preferences. (It's down towards the bottom of the Tools menu.)
Once in there, click on the Substitutions tab at the top.
You will see there are already a number of substitutions in there. At the top there will be blanks. Fill that in with whatever you want to use to create the longer text.
For example, maybe you put Replace "exf" With "Explain further" for a grading comment. Or Replace "syw" with "Be sure to show your work." when you're writing instructions.
Be careful to not put any real words in "Replace" as that will then replace that word every time you type it normally.
The only downfall here is that it does not work in comments. So, if you wanted to use this while grading, you'd need to be actually typing into their doc.
October 28, 2025 - Quick unsubscribe from email lists
October 28, 2025 - Quick unsubscribe from email lists
Today's tip is SUPER FAST but hopefully SUPER HELPFUL. If you go mail.google.com/mail/#sub, it will show you a list of email addresses that you regularly receive emails of. In the first screenshot to the right, you can see a few that came up for me. It also tells you what the actual email address is that the emails are coming from and how many emails you've received from them recently. If you see something that you no longer need, just click on Unsubscribe to the far right. I tried this a couple of weeks ago andit works! I even got an unsubscribe confirmation from some of the websites I clicked Unsubscribe for. It's quick and easy - happy email pruning!
Resource found on https://learninginhand.com/
October 21, 2025 - Tips for students for AI use
October 21, 2025 - Tips for students for AI use
Today's tip is actually just passing on a resource that I found by Tony Vincent. It's a simple handout that you can use or adapt to help your kids learn to use AI to help them think and study, rather than to AI do the work for them. It gives prompt examples for students to use when they want to:
Study/Review for a test
Understand or Explore a topic better
Get feedback on the work their doing
Think deeper about the topic they're working with
They could come in handy for us in teaching, too! I hope you find something on here helpful.
October 14, 2025 - Folder sharing changes in Google Drive
October 14, 2025 - Folder sharing changes in Google Drive
When you give someone access to a folder in Google Drive, it gives them the same level of access to everything within that folder. Google's recent update to Drive makes it that if you just change someone's access level (Editor/Commenter/ Viewer or you try to remove access) to a folder that is within another folder via the normal share settings, it will apply the same change to the parent folder.
To avoid this:
Set the access level to the parent folder that you want.
For any folder within that parent folder that you want to assign a different access level to, go into the share settings and click on the settings gear wheel in the upper right corner.
Click on/Enable the "Limit Access" option.
Basically, this "resets" that folder, removing anyone that has access due to being granted access to a parent folder, not because they were given access to that specific folder.
You will see that you have two tabs now - "People with access" and "Access removed". You can easily check in the Access Removed tab to see if anyone listed there needs access back.
You can assign them more or less access than they have to the parent folder.
Keep in mind - this option is for folders, not specific files. You cannot change the access settings for one file within a folder if someone has access to the folder. You would need to physically move the file to remove access or give a different level of access.
October 7, 2025 - "Learning Guide" in Notebook LM
October 7, 2025 - "Learning Guide" in Notebook LM
A new chat feature has been added to Notebook LM that changes the chatbot from an answer giving "expert" to a "learning guide" who will help students think through the important points of a topic. This could be something you have students use in a Notebook that you've designed for them to use as a study tool.
To create this study resource for a class:
Create a new Notebook and load in the sources that are relevant to your topic. (Instructions for using Notebook LM in general can be found here.)
Click on the Controls icon in the Chat box in the center of the Notebook screen.
Under "Define your conversational style", click on Learning Guide.
For the record, you can also customize how you want to the Chatbot to interact with students by choosing "Custom". You can tell it at what level or in what style you want the chatbot to respond, what role it should play, etc. Examples given when you click into Custom include "respond at a PhD student level" and "pretend to be a role-playing game host".
You can also choose how long you want the responses to be.
I recommend using your chatbot as though you were a student to see how it responds so you can tweak it before sharing with students.
Once you have it set how you would like you can click on Share in the upper right corner and change the share settings how you would share any other Google file. For now, you will share that link with students however you normally share links.
Some nice changes are coming in this area down the road. Keep your eyes on the tech tips!
Don't forget - students will also still have the option to use all the other features on the right side of the notebook screen: Audio overview, Video overview, Mind map, Reports, Flashcards, and Quiz!
September 30, 2025 - Securly Classroom
September 30, 2025 - Securly Classroom
QUICK TROUBLESHOOTING TIPS:
If you have students that aren’t showing up as being online, even though you can see they are - have them restart their Chromebooks.
Pro tip - before any online assessment where you want to be able to see everyone in Classroom, have the whole class restart before having them start the assessment. This will guarantee that they’ve got the most updated settings for Chrome and for the Chromebook operating system.
If you have not renamed your classes in Canvas, you may want to do that as otherwise you will see the same Skyward name for all years of classes. Once you know which classes are your current classes, you can "pin" them to the top of your Classes dashboard.
GENERAL REMINDERS:
Remember to deselect any students in your class that are not in class during your session. If you don’t and they are elsewhere trying to use their computer, it will take their computer over and not allow them to work. So, be sure you’re not taking control from afar!
Don’t be afraid to explore! You will see as you use the program that there are many options to enable and disable to customize how you use Securly Classroom. Click around!
But, don’t forget that you cannot run a “just for fun” session to do that clicking around. Any session you start will take over their Chromebooks wherever they may be.
Also - be sure you’re either making sure to close the session when you’re done OR set it to end after a certain period of time/at a certain time if you think you’ll forget. If you don’t release a class session, those students will not be able to use their Chromebooks properly in their subsequent classes.
WEB LINKS / BLOCKING PLANS:
Consider your class/material and choose which makes more sense for you and what you’re trying to accomplish.
If you have a specific set of websites that your students need to be able to access for an assignment/project, create a list of those. For example, in our Adobe class, they would need access to Adobe, a couple of sites for free HD photos, etc.
Before your class, click on “Web Links” on the left side of your dashboard.
Click on “Add collection” in the upper right corner.
Name your collection and describe it (this is for your information when you go back to use it again) and then add the links you want to keep your class in on the right.
Once you’re in class, you’d click on the “site lock” icon at the top (a chain with a padlock), and choose the collection you want to have them work within.
If you have a particular site/group of sites that you DON’T want them to access, you can also create a blocking plan. This will allow kids to get to nearly anything, except the sites you block.
Before your class, click on “Blocking plans” on the left side of your dashboard.
Click on “Add blocking plan” in the upper right corner.
Give the blocking plan a name and description and then add any sites or apps that you want to block.
Once you’re in a class, click next to where it says “Blocking plan” and choose the one you have created.
SUPER QUICK CANVAS ASSESSMENT TRICK:
If you are giving an assessment in Canvas and the students do not need to be able to move elsewhere online after they finish that assessment, you can push that Canvas assessment from the Push URL menu to them all at the same time and they will not be able to access any other sites until you release that lock.
You might use this if students will be moving to paper based work after they finish.
NEED THEIR ATTENTION QUICKLY?:
If your students are all working on their screens and you need to grab the class’s attention for something, simply click on the Screen lock icon (screen with lock - first icon on the left). That will basically block anything they’re looking at and show them a message (you can set what it will say). You can also set it to auto release after a minute or two if you just want to send a message and don’t need their attention.
GENERAL INFO:
Check out Securly’s “Cheat sheet” for a basic explanation of what you’ll see when you’re in Securly Classroom.
September 23, 2025 - Web Content Accessibility
September 23, 2025 - Web Content Accessibility
You may be hearing more these days about "Web Content Accessibility". In a nutshell, to comply with web content accessbility guidelines, you want to make sure any content that you have online/on a screen can be perceived, understood, navigated and interacted with by everyone, including people with disabilities.
One of the first places that you can start making sure your content is accessible is through a couple of "checkers" that will look at what you have and tell you where there might be accessibility issues. If you are a bare bones, large font, black and white type designer, you will be fine. 😊 If you love a good seasonal color palette, you may want to check some of those out. (Hi, it's me. I fit in this group!)
One very simple tool is a color contrast analyzer provided by Adobe. You simply put in the hex code for your text color and your background color, and it will tell you whether you pass the accessiblity test for regular text size, large text size, and graphics. The two colors on the left are just an example from a doc I have for myself. You can see the results it gave based on the hues below the screenshot of the color hex codes.
If you are using Canva for graphics and presentations, they now have a built-in Accessibility menu under the File menu in any design.
"Check design accessibility" will look at your typography (font size), color contrast and alternative text. A green check mark means it passes. If there are issues, it will list them out for you.
"Alternative text" is text added to images that is not visible in its graphic form, but will be read by a screen reader to help someone with a visual impairment.
"Reduce motion" will remove distracting animations and motion transitions from presentations when enabled.
"Navigate by layer order" would again relate to the alternative text and in what order it would be read by a screen reader.
These last two would be most useful if you know you have a visually impaired student in your class.
September 16, 2025 - Removing students in Canvas
September 16, 2025 - Removing students in Canvas
Thank you again to everybody for all your patience and help today. I hope you all had a productive day!
Today's tech tip is a bit of a cheat on my end due to the busy day. 😄 But, I think it's timely as schedule changes are officially over! In case you have any kids that are still in your Canvas course that are no longer in your class, do the following to remove them:
Click on People in the left-hand navigation bar.
Find the student for whom you want to conclude the enrollment.
Click on the three dots on the far right and click User Details.
Click on More User Details.
Click on Conclude this Enrollment and confirm.
September 9, 2025 - New year, New updates
September 9, 2025 - New year, New updates
Welcome back! Today's tech tip is less tip and more just a Canvas update. I promise to be more exciting after next week's testing day. 😄
Canvas:
Two new integrations are available to everyone this year: Canva and WeVIdeo. Basically this means you can assign projects to your students that they would complete with those platforms, right in Canvas. Training opportunities to come!
It's not you, it's Speedgrader. Many of you may have noticed that when you try to switch between sections in a course in Speedgrader, it instead goes from showing you one section to showing you multiple. The Canvas discussion boards are flooded with complaints about this. And Canvas says they're working on "a fix". Unfortunately, that means that for now we have to deal with some extra clicks. Here is what's happening:
When you go to Speedgrader from the gradebook view, it will take on the same filters. So, if you're only looking at your 2nd block, only your second block will initially show in Speedgrader. If you're looking at all of your sections, they will all show. Etc.
Once you're in Speedgrader and go to where you'd normally switch sections, imagine there is an invisible set of checkboxes. When you click on a different section, instead of switching to it like it always has, it now activates/deactivates it.
Which wouldn't be so bad if you could activate and deactive sections all at once. When you click on a new section, it adds it and closes that dropdown. You then have to open it again to deactivate the original section to just get the new section you want to view.
Yes, IT IS VERY ANNOYING. 🤪
You can see which sections you are viewing in that dropdown because those that are activated are bolded while those that aren't active are not bolded.
If you deactivate all sections, it defaults back to viewing all sections.
I promise to keep you posted on any changes to this.
In good news, they did add more functionality to accommodations and modifications, including the much desired ability to add extra time to a quiz while the student is taking it. Here is a doc for you with instructions for setting accommodations permanently for a student, how to add time to an attempt in progress, and how to let a student close an attempt and pick it back up in the same spot later on.
As we start a new year, you may get requests from parents for a pairing code in Canvas. Instructions to generate one are here.
And in case you missed it in the body of the email, here is the link to my survey I'd really appreciate you all filling out. I'd love to dive into more hands on tech training for you and more integrations with your students this year. Thank you in advance!
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