A Little More Asynchronousity - Submission Comments

A great tool for asynchronous communication within the Canvas LMS is the submission comment area. Instructors and students can have a running conversation regarding a specific assignment right alongside that assignment. Both can even record or upload audio as well as video comments.

As we know, frequent, personalized feedback from the instructor that advances learning is a critical component of online courses.

Here's a screenshot of the sidebar of the Speedgrader screen for an assignment that was resubmitted multiple times. With each submission the student and I were able to communicate back and forth about the assignment. Student information has of course been blurred to protect privacy.



The ability to include video is invaluable, because narrated screencasts can convey so much more information than typed text alone. But, simply having the tool to easily communicate about an assignment is in itself very helpful.