Week's End Report - Feb. 24th

The cool things YOU can do with Canvas!

What are our favorite things about Canvas?

Personalizing your course cards: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GVnoCN5Lp3E
 
SpeedGrader mobile app: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJsUAhtWCDI

Flexible modules: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_JumaOinMEY

Updating assignment due dates from a single page: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvVBpU02csU

A simple and customizable rubric tool: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GiogtcOGx0U

An awesome gradebook: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NuJYY3iz-IY

Video Announcements: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0y7AZGIMJY

Accessibility, they're doing it!  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFIVCwGA4gs

There's so much more....

Check out the CanvasLMS YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/CanvasLMS

Week's End Report - Feb. 17th

Welcome to the dawn of a new era!

As of today, all faculty can log in to the new IvyLearn, powered by Canvas!

Ready to get started?

• Visit ivylearn.ivytech.edu
• Enter your Ivy Tech email address and password
• Marvel at the beauty and wonder of IvyLearn!
• Open up your Sandbox shell and start experimenting

Want to know more about IvyLearn?

• Regional IvyLearn information, including:
• Training information
• Resources
• SuperUser contacts
• https://sites.google.com/view/ivylearn
• Basic information regarding IvyLearn at the statewide level: https://www.ivytech.edu/ivylearn/

Explore your options for training!

• Statewide training options available: https://www.ivytech.edu/ivylearn/17825.html
• Regional training options available (several live sessions available, many more to come; recorded sessions coming soon): https://sites.google.com/view/ivylearn/training/training-calendar

Week's End Report - Feb. 10th

Tip of the Week!

As you will undoubtedly notice this blog post is a few days late. Last week our regional SuperUsers attended training in Richmond on IvyLearn (our new Canvas Learning Management System platform). Here are a few highlights from training:

• https://ivytech.instructure.com is the web address to use for accessing IvyLearn
• Google Chrome is the preferred browser, though Canvas supports all browsers two versions back
• https://guides.instructure.com is the home for user guides for both instructors and students
• Canvas uses feedback from the users to decide what features to develop, ideas can be submitted online https://community.canvaslms.com/community/ideas/feature-ideas
• There's a very strong user community online with a wide variety of resources: https://community.canvaslms.com/

New Terminology

When we make the switch to IvyLearn we will be changing some of our terminology. Here are some terms you will be hearing over the next few months:

• Commons - A community comprised of content shared by other users, content found within Commons can be imported into your IvyLearn courses
• Files - Each user and each course has a "files" section where documents can be stored; instead of loading a file directly into a course you'll create a link, thus a single file can be reused many times
• IvyLearn - This is the name Ivy Tech has chosen for our Canvas platform
  
• Learning Management System (LMS) - Currently Blackboard 9.1 is our LMS, we are switching to the Canvas LMS platform that we will call IvyLearn
• Modules - In Blackboard we used the terms "session" and "class session" to describe the individual portions of our courses, in IvyLearn we'll be using the term "module".
• Pages - in Blackboard we had "items" within our class sessions, IvyLearn uses "pages"
• Publish - IvyLearn allows you to create and manipulate content in your live courses without your students seeing it; your content isn't available to students until you "publish"

What's Great about IvyLearn

1. Modules link to pages within a course, this means our pages are dynamic. I can link to one page many times from the same course and when I make a change to a page all of the links pointing to that page are automatically updated
2. Courses are more customizable, there are more places to put your personal mark on your course
3. Updated look and feel
4. Users can preview documents (.docx, .pdf, .ppt) within IvyLearn instead of having to download them
5. "Requirements" can be created (similar to Blackboard's Adaptive Release) allowing users to create prerequisites for items
6. ... and much, much more!

Week's End Report - Feb. 3rd

Tip of the Week!

Interested in learning more about IvyLearn and Canvas but couldn't attend one of the Sneak Peek webinars? Click the link below to watch the recording Monday's webinar:

https://youtu.be/kM5uV7iYgOU

 

Good bye Training Portal, Hello Bridge!

President Ellspermann made an announcement on Tuesday regarding Bridge, the new employee Learning Managment System (LMS) which will be replacing the Training Portal. Bridge will be a vast improvement over the Training Portal and we look forward to introducing you to this new tool. Bridge has not yet been implemented so no one at the regions (including us) has had the privilege of using it yet but when the tool becomes available we will be providing some demonstrations.

In the meantime, one thing that all faculty need to be aware of is that there is currently no plan in place to move records from the Training Portal into Bridge. All faculty and staff should retrieve their training records from the Training Portal. Click here for instructions.