Try Edcanvas Premium today to collaborate on canvases and record audio!

Edcanvas has become a great way for students to create and share canvases, and now we are going above and beyond with our new collaborative features. With Edcanvas Premium, you can co-author canvases in real-time (just like Google Docs), add your voice on top of resources for a more personal touch, and make sure you always have top-level support from the Edcanvas team to keep your classes running smoothly.

All of this combined makes Edcanvas Premium the ultimate collaborative education tool:

The best part? When you get Edcanvas Premium, your students will get the same collaboration and audio-recording features that you do! 

We’re also running a summer special - if you try Edcanvas Premium now, we’ll take 50% off of the premium price for an entire year! So, what are you waiting for?

Edcanvas just got a whole lot better: better text, comments, and reports!

Better Text Editing

We’ve given a huge overhaul to our text editor - this means you have a lot more options when creating content inside Edcanvas. More than just more colors, this update also gives you the ability to add links, tables, quotes and other objects!

Brand New! Audio Comments

Many teachers have asked us to add the ability to annotate their canvases with sound, and others have asked us to give their students the same ability. Now, you can add audio clips anywhere in your canvas! Use audio comments to:

1. Read out material to make it easier for auditory learners to understand concepts.

2. Add another level of instruction on top of your canvas.

3. Require students to voice their opinion or speak aloud translations instead of just writing it in a comment.

Better reports back to you!

Edcanvas will now start sending reports to you whenever your canvases get a lot of views, likes, or comments. That way you can quickly see which lessons are getting the most attention and from who!

Try out these new features and drop us a line on Twitter (@edcanvas), Facebook or via email (amylin@edcanvas.com). 

See how your students are responding to your lesson with just one click

Sending students home with reading assignments is great, but how do you really know that students are completing it? How do you know if they have questions or are confused about parts of the content?

You could try gleaning this info in class or assign extra homework or assignments. However, it takes precious time from class or requires extra grading from you.

Now, Edcanvas enables you to track which students in your classes have viewed or not viewed your canvas and lets your students tell you privately which parts of the lesson are confusing or even give you the “thumbs up” for resources or tiles that they particularly like!

Just click the “track” button on any lesson you own to see its report:

How can my students tell me if they like a tile or are having trouble with my lesson content?

In order for students to comment, like, or ask for help, they need to sign in to Edcanvas (Did you know students can sign up for Edcanvas for free and without an email address? Create a class on your lessons page then check out how to invite students to Edcanvas). Once signed in, whenever they are playing a canvas they can click on the “thumbs up” icon in the top right corner of the presentation mode.

This opens up the Rating Sidebar:

Here students can quickly tell you if they liked or disliked the resource, as well as ask if you can go over the information again in class.

You can use the “track” button on your lessons to access this information at any time.

Track your lesson today:

With the Lesson Tracker, you can send assignments home to students and keep them accountable for completing them before class, without grading or counting; you can also gain valuable insight on what your students like and what confuses them so you can focus your valuable class time on closing the learning gaps.

Add resources to Edcanvas while surfing the web

Follow this one simple instruction to add the bookmarking tool to your browser. It is as easy and dragging and dropping! 

Best practices for using the bookmarklet
Once the bookmarklet is installed, it will live on your bookmarks bar.

Whenever you visit a website or video that you think would be perfect for your canvas, all you have to do is click “Edcanvas it!”

These resources will be found in your Favorites tab on Edcanvas and those resources can be dragged into any of your canvases. 

Start Edcanvas-ing the web!

Edcanvas + Edmodo = Better Learning

We have brought the fun and ease of Edcanvas to Edmodo! What’s a better way to introduce the free app than a guest blog from a fellow Edmodo Ambassador, Kristina Holzweiss:

Are you looking for a website where your students can organize their research and annotate websites without an email? 

Do you need to create a hotlist for your students so you can minimize search time to provide more time to read and analyze?

Would you like to manage all of your students’ projects onto one location so that you can easily access and view their work?

I can’t believe that Edcanvas does all of this for free!

My students have used Edcanvas to organize research for their National History Day projects, collect favorite cupcake recipes, and organize their favorite athletes.  It’s so fun, easy, and visually-appealing that your students will actually forget that they are learning.  As a school library media specialist, I have used Edcanvas in conjunction with other web tools to help science teachers create an online unit about endangered animals.  Late one night, a colleague sent me an email that she was having problems with organizing links about the periodic table on another site.  It was an emergency since she team taught with a science teacher who was home because his wife had just delivered a baby.  My colleague sent me the sites and I added some of my own to create a hotlist on the periodic table so easy for his substitute teacher to navigate.

I have been an Edcanvas addict since I first learned about this web tool on Edmodo.  The Edcanvas app on Edmodo will make a simple solution even easier for teachers and students to understand and use.  I only wish I had this tool when I was a kid!

Kristina Holzweiss is certified English teacher, school library media specialist, educational technologist, and professional developer with over 18 years of teaching experience. You can connect with her on Edmodo and follow her on Twitter at @lieberrian

Power of a community

Following the tragic events last week in Newtown, we remember the power of a community coming together and supporting each other.

Each one of us have an unique story to tell and perspective to share. Each canvas becomes an extension of who we are way and the valuable work we do every day. And this is why we want to showcase the author behind every canvas. 

Introducing profiles

As important as each element is inside the canvas, so is each educator behind the canvas. 

Once logged into Edcanvas, you will be asked for your story. A picture and a short 160 character bio is all that is needed. We pre-populated a username for you given your first and last name but you can always change it. 

Each educator has their own space to showcase the beauty and creativity of their work. Your space can be found at http://www.edcanvas.com/USERNAME. 

When looking at someone else’s canvas, you will know who the author is and what other canvases they have created and liked. 

So start connecting with other educators in the community and let us know how your experience is. 

Introducing Edcanvas for schools

You’ve experienced how great Edcanvas is for yourself and students to organize, present and share knowledge in one place. Imagine the power if all your colleagues and students were using Edcanvas.

Introducing Edcanvas for schools! Learn more of the great features built just for schools. 

What are your students thinking?

Canvases are great for organizing, presenting and sharing online resources with your students and colleagues. But we all know that deep learning happens when dialogue is involved and there is a feedback loop around what is taught/learned.

That’s why we’ve add commenting support!

Three ways to use comments:
1) Ask questions to your students and engage in a critical dialogue over resources in the canvas.
2) Comment on student work or colleagues’ canvases and have students comment on each other’s work directly in the canvas.
3) Students take notes on the materials in the canvas. 

Taking primary UK educator Anthony Evan’s Research on Graffiti canvas as an example where he poses many questions like “Is all graffiti bad?” and “How much might it cost to clean the graffiti?”.

Now Anthony and teachers like him can actually have students answer these thought-provoking questions in a two-way dialogue! 

When there are comments for a particular resource, the tile will be marked with a comment icon in the upper right corner.

Try it out and let us know how you are engaging in a dialogue with your students and colleagues!