Dr Eva Sweeney, School of Medicine, Dentistry and Biomedical Sciences

Dr Eva Sweeney – School of Medicine, Dentistry and Biomedical Sciences

What is your favourite Canvas feature, and why? I am constantly discovering new features that impress me, currently, I am loving how easy it is to integrate Turnitin with assignments in Canvas. It is so much simpler and intuitive than the previous method.

What would you say to colleagues who may be hesitant to use Canvas? Our students are habituated to receiving high quality digital media in their daily life, when they come to university and are greeted with Queens Online they view us in the same way we would view someone still using Windows 95. For those that say that the don’t feel like they want all these bells and whistles I would say that you don’t know what you are missing till you try it!

Can you show us three things  in Canvas which have worked well for you? 

  1. I love the compatibility of Canvas, it supports a range of embedded tools such as Mediasite, Padlet, Google Forms, YouTube, 3d images, Twitter and other media so easily.
  2. The staff-student and inter-student communication features are also very useful, for example: discussion boards, group “skype” type tools, collaborative documents/PowerPoints for student goupwork, a module chat box and a very versatile announcement tool. Feedback from students indicates that this makes them feel more connected and engaged with their instructors.
  3. The support is excellent from both our in house team and the 24/7 live online help chat. 

#1: Embedding Content

#2: Announcements

#3: The HELP Button