Vibing with Gemini - Convert DOCX to Canvas Quiz
Instructure recently sent notifications about upcoming changes to its login user interface. It had little impact to those at my university accessing our Canvas LMS, but there was one significant area that was affected.
A software application I’ve used for years to convert properly-formatted Word .docx files into Canvas quizzes gave me error messages after I changed the “New Canvas Login UI” settings.
Nerdy background info: I use a Mac Mini as my daily driver for work. The quiz conversion software I use is only made for Windows. For years I have relied on Parallels for macOS to let me use a Windows11 virtual machine solely for this software as a way to provide a service for my faculty clients. This week I discovered my software stopped working, and a faculty client needed a Word document converted to a quiz for later this week.
So I had a conversation with Gemini.
What resulted was a python script requiring no elevated rights in Canvas and no access tokens to leverage an API call. When I ran the command in my terminal application it immediately opened a new tab on my web browser, allowed me to upload my .docx file, showed me a preview of the quiz questions with correct answers, and required two mouse clicks to download a QTI .zip file of the converted quiz onto my desktop computer to import into a Canvas course of my choosing and create a new question bank as well. No cloud requirements, no tiered pricing structure, no external sources. Needless to say, I was chuffed with the workflow.
Here is a no-dialogue video of what I was able to create. Might want to view it in fullscreen size to see the small text:
If you’re interested in converting properly-formatted Word .docx files into a multiple choice / true-false quiz in Canvas, drop me a line. Always happy to share my nerdy info with my fabulous Canvas Insiders!
Have a good day,
Chris