Canvas Insider Newsletter - Issue 2 - February 2022
Information, skills, and perspectives to improve your relationship with Instructure’s Canvas LMS.
Timely Canvas Tip - Insurance for Essay Questions
While Canvas saves a student’s quiz responses as they go, sometimes brief interruptions in a student’s wireless internet connection might prevent a response from being successfully submitted to Canvas. Some examples of temporary disruptions in wireless service can include:
Moving their laptop to another location to get away from a noisy roommate.
Multiple devices on a network competing for internet bandwidth.
An unexpected outage in service from an Internet Service Provider.
To decrease student anxiety when taking a quiz, a student can compose their response to an essay question in a text document such as Microsoft Word or Google Docs. After completing their response, they can copy/paste their words into the quiz’s essay question field and proceed with the next question. Should an unfortunate disruption to their internet access occur, they will still have their response on their computer and won’t have to start over from scratch, which can be helpful when quizzes have a time limit.
Is my browser compatible with Canvas?
Click here to view Instructure’s latest recommended web browser versions, plus get a visual notification about any web plugins needed to use Canvas on your current browser:
Glorious Canvas Tip - Two Steps to Extend Quiz Time for Students
Due to various learning circumstances, some students need additional time beyond a quiz’s default time limit. Teachers can provide additional time for students by doing the following:
1 - Select Moderate This Quiz in the upper-right of a published quiz’s webpage.
2 - In the Edit quiz page, select the +Add box in the Assign field, enter the first few letters of the student receiving additional time/attempts in Step 1, enter the same Available From time as the rest of the class, but enter a later Until and Due Date to account for the additional time.
Don’t forget to click the blue Save button to lock in your changes.
Bodacious Canvas Tip - Troubleshoot Images not Appearing in Pages or Quizzes
Should you receive communiques from students claiming to not see linked or embedded images in your Canvas content page or quiz, it might be due to a an add-on/extension which blocks various web content. Sometimes authenticating into your institution’s Canvas website in a New Private Window in Mozilla Firefox or macOS Safari or a New Incognito Window in Google Chrome will show the images or videos.
If that doesn’t work…
macOS Safari - Unchecking the Prevent cross-site tracking box in Safari Extensions:
Sometimes clearing Safari’s cache might make images and videos appear:
Open Safari on your Mac.
In Safari, click Safari (menu bar).
Click Preferences.
Click the Advanced tab.
And check the “Show Develop menu in menu bar” option.
Now a new menu item will appear called Develop in the Safari menu bar.
Click this new option, Develop.
And click Empty Cache.
Google Chrome - In Settings | Security and Privacy | Images, “Don’t allow sites to show images” may be selected. Clicking “Sites can show images” may help images and videos reappear:
In this modern era of heterogeneous technology we have Windows, macOS, ChromeOS, and Linux operating systems, Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and Brave browsers, and numerous add-ons/extensions to make troubleshooting an abnormal issue in your Canvas course for only one or a few students incredibly difficult. Your results may vary.
Shameless Plug
Check out the Canvas Insider podcast on whatever podcast app you choose to use. Helpful reminders, words to the wise, tech tips beyond Instructure’s Canvas LMS, and public service announcements!