Updates and FAQs

Video Annotation in Studio

You can quickly annotate any video you have in Studio in Canvas and add in helpful text or links. With some easy edits, the text and/or links will be displayed over the video forcing the video to pause until the viewer has to hit the Continue button to start again. This can be a great way to fix an error in a video or to add depth to the video by adding some useful information or a link to an external site.

You can find out how to do this using the Canvas support page, https://community.canvaslms.com/t5/Studio/How-do-I-add-annotations-to-my-media-in-Canvas-Studio/ta-p/456910, and you can even see an example of this in action on one of the videos that I created for using Immersive Reader in Helperbird, https://nevadacubs.instructure.com/courses/10117.

The annotations are visible when you embed the annotated videos into a Page on Canvas using the Apps - Studio option. If you do not see Studio under the Apps button, click View All to add it. You can't view the annotations when using the share link from the Studio page for that media. (Hopefully this will change with future updates)

ITEC Resources

Recently a few of us were gone last week for the ITEC 2021 Spring Virtual Conference. While we can’t directly share the videos from the conference, there are some resources we can share and as usual, just let us know if you have any questions.

• Eric Curts was one of our Featured Speakers and he had some great sessions on Google Drawing, Tours with Google Earth, and Hipster Google (tools you had not heard of). You can find all of his session resources and some recent blog posts (Math Whiteboad, Jamboard activities with Equatio, and others) at https://www.controlaltachieve.com/

• Jen Giffen was another featured speaker that had some great sessions including ones regarding Flipgrid and Sketchnoting. You can see a good number of videos she created over Flipgrid on her YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCT6JVMDPb6Q6uE6rQqxkwEQ/videos

• UDL - We had a good number of sessions focused on the topics of Universal Design of Learning and accessibility. I have already created a resource page for teachers at https://sites.google.com/nevadacubs.org/nevada-tech-and-learning/accessibility-and-udl but you can also find some other resources at my UDL Flipboard https://flipboard.com/@patrickdono2020/udl-and-accessibility-3pfe8m9dz

Google Expeditions and Tour Creator going away

• Unfortunately Google has decided that after this summer, they will be stopping support for Google Expeditions and Tour Creator. While this is not a great thing, there are some alternatives out there that allow you to do very similar things.

  • Richard Byrne has a couple posts about alternatives to Google Expeditions and Tour Creator

    • https://www.freetech4teachers.com/2021/04/a-handful-of-alternatives-to-google.html

    • https://www.freetech4teachers.com/2021/04/tour-creator-is-closing-here-are-some.html

• Matt Miller has a post about some virtual field trips options on his site, DitchThatTextbook, and even includes some options through Nearpod https://ditchthattextbook.com/20-virtual-field-trip-ideas-and-activities-for-your-classroom/

Collaborative Digital Whiteboards

• Google finally brought in version history into Jamboard which is great when you are using it to collaborate with others. Jamboard is a very useful whiteboard tool but there are a few other new ones that there are some recent posts over it.

  • Version History in Jamboard

    • To get to the Version history, just click on the 3 vertical dots in the upper right corner. As with other Google tools, it will be basic for now but I would expect more updates over time.

  • Math Whiteboard

    • Eric Curts had a recent post over Math Whiteboard and is even offering a free webinar over how to use it in the classroom. Check it out at https://www.controlaltachieve.com/2021/04/webinar-math-whiteboard.html

  • Whiteboard.chat

    • Whiteboard.chat is another tool with some more features than others including the ability to embed audio and take advantage of Microsoft Immersive Reader. Check out a post about it at https://www.freetech4teachers.com/2021/02/whiteboardchat-create-online.html

WeVideo Updates and Info

• WeVideo is a tool that teachers/students have access to in our district and they have been pushing out some updates over the last year to improve the function and usability for learning. Creating videos can be a great for students to show their understanding of a concept, work collaboratively with other students to meet a goal, and to use critical thinking skills in order to determine how best to communicate their solution.

  • Screen & Webcam Recorder

    • WeVideo recently released a new Chrome extension that allows you to be able to quickly record your screen and/or webcam. This is great for creating quick videos to give directions or to explain some concepts for students. If you need to edit your video, you can import it into WeVideo but this is more for those times you need to quickly create a video to share out. Just go to the Chrome web store to install it in Chrome.

• The following are some blog posts by WeVideo about some of the updates they have rolled out in the last year.

  • Improve Full Screen Recording Tools

    • In the full WeVideo program, you have more options when creating a screen recording. When recording both your screen and your webcam, it will easily create separate video tracks in WeVideo so you can edit and resize them separately in order to improve the quality of your video. This is different than the Chrome extension as you need to be logged into the full site (https://www.wevideo.com/) to access this tool set.

  • Gif Creator

    • WeVideo added a Gif Creator option last year for when you want to create a quick gif from a video you have already recorded. This is a great way to easily create a gif image in order to show or highlight something. You can easily add text and effects to your clip.

  • Stock Video Sites For Your Project

    • While we have access to the stock video library found in WeVideo which has a ton of available images and videos to use in your project, there are also some other sites that you can use to get some stock footage to use for your video. To get to the built-in stock library, just start a new project and you will see the “Stock media” tab where you will find all of the free stock footage in WeVideo.

Split Screen on your Mac

• Have you ever wanted to split your screen so you can work on two tabs at the same time without flipping back and forth? This short tutorial video can show you how. You can also do this with a Google Meet on one side and any site on the other side.

HelperBird Tip: Change your Font

• There are many features to HelperBird that can help all learners. One feature you might want to check out is how you can change the font on any website quickly and easily. There may be times that you don't like the font on a website. You can create a consistent looking font across the web based on your taste. Watch the short video below to learn how to change the font. https://youtu.be/i1EeaekPHIo

Fresh Start in Canvas

• Some of you have asked how to give your students a clean slate in their Canvas courses (that are year long courses) for the start of the 2nd semester. You can unpublish your modules (click the green checkmark at the right of each module). Then put availability end dates on assignments so they do not appear in their to-do list on their dashboard. You can add end availability dates in bulk. Here is how you can do so.

Copying/Importing Canvas Course Material

• I have received a couple of questions this morning about transferring/copying content from one course to another term course. For example, a term 1 class that is now going to be taught term 3 again. Refer to this google doc to copy your course from one term to another.

Student View Update in Canvas

• Canvas has added a "Student View" icon on EVERY page in Canvas!! Finally!! This is so nice that you don't have to go back to the home page or settings like before to see what the students see when in Canvas.

• On the top right of each page, discussion, assignment, module, you will see a pair of glasses which is Student View. Just click that to enable Student View and see what the students see.

Jamboard Templates

• Here is a great collection of Jamboard Templates.

• If you are not familiar with Jamboard, it is an interactive whiteboard that can be used on the Chromebook or iPad. Think of it as a synchronous Google Docs whiteboard.

• Here are some tutorials and ideas for using it with your students.

Chrome 89 Updates (Screen Recorder, QR Code reader, Select to Speak updates)

• Google updated the Chrome operating system this week to Chrome 89 which adds some useful features for students. The update introduces a new screen capture and screen recording tool, one that is built-in to the Chromebook for students to easily use to record their screens and their audio. You also can now use the built-in camera app to read QR codes without needing a different tool.

• Google also updated their Select to Speak tool that allows you to select text on a site/file to be read aloud by the Chromebook. They added some new options to control the speed and other features of the voice and it seems to work really well.

• Watch the video here to see how to use this feature. If the student’s Chromebook has not updated to Chrome 89 yet, they can do a manual update, which is covered in that video.