On Friday, August 5, 2022, several new features are coming to Canvas. Instructors can use Student View in Canvas courses to preview how these changes impact students or view a video that explains assignment and discussion enhancements.

Assignment Enhancements

These updates primarily impact the student experience.

• The interface and workflow have changed.
• A progress tracker now clearly indicates to students their assignment submission, grading, and feedback status.
• Rubrics used for grading are more prominently displayed for students.
  

Discussions/Announcements Redesign

The Discussions and Announcements redesign includes new features for instructors and students.

• A new option allows instructors to make a discussion fully anonymous or partially anonymous. In partially anonymous discussions, students are prompted to choose if they want their name to appear with their reply.
• Only original replies will automatically appear, preventing the page from becoming excessively long as the discussion progresses. To access responses to those original replies, participants can click a link and they will appear in a sidebar.
• Role tags will appear next to teachers’ and TAs’ names throughout the discussion.
• The newest replies appear at the top of the page instead of the bottom. Posts can be sorted to display the oldest first if desired.
• Participants can report replies for being inappropriate or offensive/abusive, mention each other by using the @ symbol, and quote other replies as a part of their own reply.
  

Icon Maker

Instructors will notice a new button in the Rich Content Editor — the Icon Maker. Icons can be created that can be used as visual indicators or buttons that link to other items in a course or outside resources. To ensure buttons that are created with the Icon Maker will work for everyone, remember to add meaningful alt text.

Immersive Reader

A new Immersive Reader button is located at the top right corner of Canvas pages. This tool promotes accessibility and inclusion by supporting all students’ reading experience, including those with a variety of disabilities such as visual impairments, dyslexia, and ADHD.

Immersive Reader allows course participants to:

• Have text read aloud
• Change the speed of reading
• Change font size, text spacing, and background color
• Split up words into syllables
• Choose between two fonts optimized to help with reading
• Highlight sets of one, three, or five lines for greater focus
• Select a word to see a related picture and hear the word read aloud as many times as necessary

You can always learn more about Canvas features and how to use them in the Canvas Community. For questions about these new features, reach out to your school’s Academic Technology Specialist or contact 6-TECH.