The Smart Search feature is now available for teachers to enable in their Canvas courses. Below is how Instructure defines the Smart Search functionality:
“Our Smart Search feature relies on an AI-adjacent technology called ’embeddings.’ This technology “reads” the course content and creates a complex mathematical representation of each piece of content. When you perform a search, the technology ‘reads’ your query and converts it into a complex mathematical representation. The tool then compares the mathematical representations of both your search and course content to return relevant results; this result is returned with a ‘Confidence’ rating.”
As of June 1, 2024, searchable items include content pages, announcements, discussion prompts, and assignment descriptions, with plans to expand.
We feel it is important to note this feature is designed to respect course permissions. In other words, if your students are not able to access files in your course prior to enabling the Smart Search feature students should also not be able to search for and access those files after the feature is enabled.
Once the teacher has enabled the feature it is up to the teacher if they want to add Smart Search to the course navigation. The teacher will still be able to access Smart Search even if it is not added to the course navigation for students. Please see the link here about managing course navigation links if teacher wants to enable Smart Search in the course navigation.
We hope you all enjoy the new Smart Search feature in Canvas, and for all of the detailed information please see the Help Guide here.
Read&Write is a dynamic Chrome Extension Available for all members of Hall County Schools to support literacy. The tool can help with everyday tasks such as reading text aloud, understanding unfamiliar words, and even researching assignments.
In July 2024, Read&Write added additional features to their product that include:
The Read&Write Feature Tour is a great resource for teachers and students that shows videos of how to use each item on the Read&Write Tool Bar.
To find additional training guides and webinars (live and on-demand), please visit the Texthelp Academy .
Prior to 2024 the Book Creator / Canvas integration was primarily just single-sign-on. The features below are now included in the new integration:
Read all of the details of how to use Book Creator with Canvas here and how to improve your Canvas/Book Creator workflows here.
Also, the video below provides an excellent view of the new integration features as well:
Flip is no longer available as a standalone platform. Microsoft, the owner of Flip, has decided to integrate its functionality into Microsoft Teams for Education, leading to the discontinuation of the Flip website and app. As a result, all Flip content is now in read-only mode, and users have until September 30, 2024, to download any content, including student responses, from Flip.
Voicethread is the closest alternative to Flip that HCSD recommends and supports. It is a multimedia presentation and group interaction tool that accommodates various media types, including images, videos, audio (via microphone or phone), and text annotation. Similar to Flip, Voicethread centers interaction around a central piece of content, and then allows users to “thread” their responses. Importantly, Voicethread integrates seamlessly with Canvas and allows for connections to the gradebook.
So what exactly is VoiceThread, and how can you get started using it? Take a look at these videos and the resources below:
The Canva glow up includes a fresh homepage and editor designed for focused work. Canva made these changes to improve the way you create in Canva, and to make it easier to organize all of your designs, content, and documentation.
Click here to get to know the ‘glowed up’ editor and homepage, and/or watch the 3 minute video below:
Canva also provided an excellent ‘Back to School Teacher Toolkit‘ in case you missed it earlier in the year.
Finally, we wanted to include the latest edition of ‘Connecting the Dots‘ which is the periodic newsletter from Canva for Education.
Preferred language translation lets you effectively reach all families in their home languages—from direct conversations to district-wide notifications.
Reach families in the languages they understand.
With preferred language translation, messages are automatically translated into 90+ languages on the Remind app and on the web. Parents can select their home language for messaging on Remind, or teachers and administrators can manually update preferred languages for hard-to-reach families.
Support family engagement with two-way translation.
When you send a message to a multilingual group, all you need to do is compose your message in English. From there, you can see which languages your message will be translated into, confirm the number of recipients per language, and preview the translated text, all from one place—no copying and pasting from Google Translate required. Plus, translations are two-way so you can answer questions and build stronger relationships. When a parent responds to your message in their home language, it’s translated back to the preferred language you’ve set.
For more information on Preferred Language:
Preferred language translation FAQs
How do I send translated messages as a teacher, parent, or student?
How can I receive messages in another language?
How can I set a preferred language for my class participants?