November technology updates
In our technology updates we announce the latest developments in UoA supported tools for teaching and learning.
Canvas
New Quizzes quiz details
This update provides students with access to limited quiz details, even if the quiz is locked and not yet available. Students will be able to see the due date, points, number of questions and the availability date of the quiz. New Quizzes – locked quiz details.
Reoccurring calendar events
In the course calendar you now have the ability to create reoccurring events. Calendar – reoccurring events.
Discussions – push notifications
Push notifications of new discussion posts and replies was reinstated for the Canvas app on mobile phones. Go to Account > Notifications and scroll down to Discussions.
Canvas Staff Access Upload Tool: For adding staff roles into Canvas courses
Group Services Administrators, Group Services team leaders, and Group Services managers can now use the Staff Access Upload Tool (part of the Canvas Management Console) to quickly and efficiently add staff roles in Canvas. Additional drop-in sessions were held in November 2023.
Perusall
Additional content types
The latest release of Perusall enables additional content types to be imported into the Perusall Library from Google Docs and Slides, Canvas Files and Canvas Pages.
Suggested discussion prompts
Generative AI has been utilised for suggesting discussion prompts. Simply highlight some of the reading text and a suggested discussion prompt will appear. This feature is only visible to teachers.
Perusall tutorial for students
An assignment called “Making the Most of Perusall” is now available. Teachers have the option to include this zero-point training module for students, which demonstrates how to engage productively in a social learning context and write high-quality comments on Perusall readings.
Three options of the module are tailored for STEM, humanities, and social sciences. It is available from the Library > Add content tab; look for Making the Most of Perusall.
Dynamic feedback to students
Teachers can create dynamic feedback prompts, which appear in the student’s assignment progress panel. The prompts are designed to provide students with a little nudge on how to receive full credit on an assignment. The feedback is based on your selected scoring rubric. It can be disabled by selecting Settings > Scoring > General > Hide grade feedback from students.
Academic integrity enhancements
A new Audit Panel identifies comments flagged as duplicates, comments flagged by students as inappropriate, comments pasted from outside of Perusall, and comments that might not be valid English.
Citation assistance for students
Students can now easily create citations and reference list items in APA, MLA and Chicago styles from text highlighted in the assignment reading. The citation is generated from the metadata associated with the assignment reading that teachers upload to the Perusall Library.
Reply to comments
Students can highlight text in someone else’s comment and include that comment in their reply. The author of the original comment will receive a notification.
Voice comments
Voice comments can be added by clicking the microphone button in the editor.
FeedbackFruits support
On Friday 1 December 2023, we are running a City Campus workshop where we hear from the FeedbackFruits team how you can introduce relational pedagogies, technology-enhanced learning and assessment re-design opportunities into your teaching.
Review the self-help FeedbackFruits learning resources.
UDOIT Advantage support
On Thursday 7 December 2023, we are running a hands-on workshop at the City Campus where trainers from UDOIT will work with academics on how to get the best out of the tool and support accessibility in their courses.
Review the self-help UDOIT learning resources.
Tips for accessible content
Topic relationships are conveyed through presentation.
Use headings (rather than simply making the text larger, bold, or underlined) so that users who rely on screen readers can understand how the page or document is organised and navigating to specific sections becomes easier.
- Be careful not to skip heading levels, e.g., (H1, H2, H3) not (H1, H3, H2).
- Use appropriate naming conventions, module and sub-section numbering.
Read more about design for accessibility.
Inspera
Inspera new features and improvements are now available for testing on the Inspera test platform for staff. If staff wish to enable features on Inspera Production environment, they should submit a request to SMS team via IT portal.
RSS news feeds from TeachWell
For those of you who use a content aggregator (e.g., innoreader.com) for keeping up to date with various news feeds, RSS feeds are now available from TeachWell. Please find the links to feed URLs from the RSS buttons on the following pages: news, technology updates, events, and case studies in teaching.
As always, should you have any questions or require assistance, IT connect and Ranga Auaha Ako support team is here to help. Stay tuned for next month’s technology releases, where we’ll bring you more news and enhancements!
Disclaimer: The information in this blog post is accurate as of 19 October 2023. Please note that the features and updates mentioned above are based on available information at the time of writing, and there may have been further developments since then.