Collegial Faculty Canvas Support this Week
I’m excited to announce that some stellar MiraCosta colleagues have volunteered to provide 33 hours of drop-in faculty Canvas support during finals week. This support will be offered in the Oceanside Teaching & Learning Center, on the San Elijo Campus, and even online via Zoom. Please see the schedule for details.
You may have questions about grading, wrapping up your classes, or even questions about designing your spring classes. Or perhaps you have some nagging questions about Canvas that you just haven’t had time to address this semester. Or, maybe you’ll just feel better about getting some Canvas work done knowing that you have an expert on hand should anything come up! Either way, take advantage of this great support offered by your fellow faculty.
Additional Canvas Support & Tips
At the end of each term, you have a couple weeks to wrap up your work within your Canvas courses, and courses then go into a read-only Concluded mode. For the fall semester, this occurs on Dec. 31, after which you and your students will have continued but limited access to course materials by default. See our detailed support guide to learn more about how this works, how you can change what happens, and how to work with your Concluded courses as you’re creating your new classes.
Remember, you always have 24×7 access to Canvas support (even during winter break) by calling the faculty Canvas support hotline: 1-833-345-2890
Jim Julius, Ed.D.
Faculty Director, Online Education
Online Ed News to Know Before You Go
Canvas Drop-In Support for Faculty This Week
On the first day of finals (and the second, third, and fourth), my colleagues gave to me … help with all things Canvas, from grading, to designing next semester’s classes, to any other burning Canvas questions you might have! An announcement will be updated each day this week in Canvas with the day’s times and locations – see the full week schedule here.
Canvas End-of-Term Reminders
After Dec. 31, your fall Canvas classes go into read-only mode for you and your students. There are some important things you should consider before that date! Please review our Canvas end-of-term guide.
Zero- and Low-Textbook Cost Class Spring Classes
If you are teaching any spring classes that have course material costs of $0 (zero) or under $40 (low), please be sure to designate those classes as such in SURF. This enables your class to receive a special denotation in SURF and also to be listed on the ZTC/LTC page. See directions here (and this procedure may be a bit different following the SURF upgrade, so please take care of this ASAP).
Online and Hybrid Class Information Reminder
If you are teaching an online or hybrid class this spring, please make sure your class description is up to date on the Online Class Schedule page. Students use the information on this page to get details about your class such as your expectations for success, and how they should get started. See detailed instructions on how to provide detailed class information there.
Faculty Professional Learning Opportunities
Online Teaching Conference – Submit a Proposal?
The CCC Online Teaching Conference returns to Anaheim June 17-19. MiraCosta is always well represented at this conference. Online Ed will fully fund attendance including hotel for MiraCostans who present at OTC. The Call for Proposals is open now through Jan. 31. If you’d like to go but don’t want to submit a proposal, look for more information later in the spring about potential support.
@ONE Online Teaching Classes
@ONE offers an incredible array of online teaching classes ranging from general introductory and intermediate courses about online education, to more focused learning experiences related to topics such as culturally responsive teaching, accessibility, assessment, and much more. New classes begin January 14 – check out the catalog.
CVC-OEI Course Academy
If you teach a fully online C-ID approved course, you are eligible to receive support from the Online Education Initiative in preparation for possibly offering the class on the Course Exchange. Learn more about the Course Design Academy and/or sign up for a spring informational meeting.
And finally … Sean Davis is the new & improved Jim Julius this spring!
I’ll be on sabbatical this spring, working on developing a whole new set of resources and professional learning experiences designed specifically for MiraCosta faculty interested in growing their online teaching skills and knowledge. Sean Davis, a sociology faculty member and all-around amazing MiraCostan, will be filling in for me. I am excited for the fresh perspective he will bring to this role, and I hope you take advantage of his availability to support all things Online Ed this spring.
Jim Julius, Ed.D.
Faculty Director, Online Education
New Quizzes (aka Quizzes.Next) in Canvas
Quizzes.Next was the original name given to Canvas’s alternative quiz/test assessment engine introduced in 2018. As of summer 2019, Canvas has begun referring to this tool as “New Quizzes.” Although originally it was expected that Quizzes.Next would completely replace the original Quiz tool by early 2019, it is no longer clear when this might happen.
Teachers can use Quizzes.Next to create assessments using a variety of question types, including some unavailable in the original Quiz tool. Quizzes.Next assessments are a particular type of Assignment rather than a distinct tool.
Locate New Quizzes in Canvas
- Click Assignments in the Canvas course menu
- Click the +Quiz/Test button near the top right of the screen.
Getting Started with Quizzes.Next
- How do I create an assessment using Quizzes.Next?
- How do I migrate a Canvas quiz to Quizzes.Next?
- Quizzes.Next User Group & Additional Quizzes.Next Guides for Instructors and Students
- Student Guide: Taking an assessment in Quizzes.Next
FAQs and Known Issues
As of summer 2018, Quizzes.Next is in Beta. You may find a few issues as you begin to work with this tool. Check the FAQ and Known Issues, and contact Canvas Support to report issues and get help.
MiraCosta Online Ed Updates: Mid-Semester edition
Good stuff here for all faculty – not just those teaching online. Please read on!
Canvas Conference online tomorrow (10/26)
Ready for some new ideas on effective uses of Canvas? The Can-Innovate online conference is designed by and for the CCC system. You can register and attend independently, or you can pop in to the new C3 Teaching & Learning Center space in the OC Hub (OC 1252 & 1253) to catch as many sessions as you like throughout the day (tomorrow, Friday 10/26). There’s also an open Canvas course with slides and other resources for every session. This is, of course, Flex-eligible!
Spring Class Schedule is available!
That means three things:
- Classes assigned to you in SURF are available for you to begin developing in Canvas.
- If any of your spring classes are Zero Textbook Cost (ZTC) or Low Textbook Cost (<$40), you should designate them as such in SURF.
- If you are teaching online or hybrid spring classes, you can provide more information about them for students in the Online Course Schedule. . Please note: if you have done this in the past by copying text from Word or other sources, you may have introduced HTML that causes your course description to be inaccessible. Please type directly or copy in plain text only.
Want to learn more about Open Ed Resources & Zero Textbook Cost materials?
Check out the MiraCosta OER/ZTC website, starting with a curated set of texts and Canvas shells useful for many GE classes.
Consider registering for and attending a regional OER/ZTC summit on Nov. 9, 8 am – 2 pm, at Grossmont College.
Video Management System coming – interested?
The MiraCosta Online Educators committee is preparing to select a video management system to pilot this spring at MiraCosta. This will enable faculty and students to easily record, manage, and share videos within Canvas. Faculty will be able to get detailed information about student viewing of videos, discussions can be tied to different points in videos, and quiz questions can be inserted within videos. Please let me know if you might want to be part of our evaluation process.
Fall Student Orientations to Online Learning complete
Nearly 240 students attended a Student Orientation to Online Learning session this fall, and nearly 2700 have attended since 2014. If you want to give extra credit to your students for attending, you can run a report in SURF to see which ones participated.
Jim Julius, Ed.D.
Faculty Director, Online Education