Good, not great yet.
Great app, I use it on my iPad.
Two things
1. Discussion board is very difficult to use at a high level. There is an option to just show the original posts, but then you can’t click on one to go to it or download them all.
The weakness in the discussion capability is why I will use another product next time.
2. Would love to be able to speed grade in Teacher.
Two things
1. Discussion board is very difficult to use at a high level. There is an option to just show the original posts, but then you can’t click on one to go to it or download them all.
The weakness in the discussion capability is why I will use another product next time.
2. Would love to be able to speed grade in Teacher.
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Teacher Interface Problems
The Teacher app exits if I touch or write too close to the bottom of the screen. This may be a "feature" of iOS but is extremely annoying. Wasted time is the worst feature of the app.
Sometimes, Teacher crashes when I try to swipe left or right to the next assignment to be graded. I curse when this happens. It is awful (the app, that is, my cursing is quite satisfying).
I find that the slider for entering a score oftens jumps to the next higher or lower number wheen I let go of the sldier. The slider seems to have been modified to have clicks between scores now, but the problem persists.
Once in awhile I get red lines being drawn when I try to scroll down with two fingers. This might be acsribed to only one finger being sensed, but the problem seems to be more related to some kind of state the program is in.
Another issue seems to be occurring at a higher level than the Teacher app itself. This issue is that, when I login to Canvas on my iPad, the Teacher app insists on popping up instead of the dashboard. I have to kill the teacher app to get out of it--it has taken over my Canvas access.
I only use teacher for grading and have no view on other features.
Sometimes, Teacher crashes when I try to swipe left or right to the next assignment to be graded. I curse when this happens. It is awful (the app, that is, my cursing is quite satisfying).
I find that the slider for entering a score oftens jumps to the next higher or lower number wheen I let go of the sldier. The slider seems to have been modified to have clicks between scores now, but the problem persists.
Once in awhile I get red lines being drawn when I try to scroll down with two fingers. This might be acsribed to only one finger being sensed, but the problem seems to be more related to some kind of state the program is in.
Another issue seems to be occurring at a higher level than the Teacher app itself. This issue is that, when I login to Canvas on my iPad, the Teacher app insists on popping up instead of the dashboard. I have to kill the teacher app to get out of it--it has taken over my Canvas access.
I only use teacher for grading and have no view on other features.
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So many new glitches
Started a month or two ago. courses keep disappearing from the homepage; the notifications are broken (I have “push” turned off for grading but still get push notifications for grading); etc. Not very helpful at all.
Sadly not a replacement for the desktop
- Utterly underpowered on iOS
- As a teaching tool, the integration with iOS is exceedingly poor.
- Speedgrader is a frustrating mess. Apple Pencil support is jittery, inconsistent, essentially broken. Half an hour trying to use it and I’m back to the browser.
I would much rather read student work on my iPad, but alas, this just doesn’t cut it.
- As a teaching tool, the integration with iOS is exceedingly poor.
- Speedgrader is a frustrating mess. Apple Pencil support is jittery, inconsistent, essentially broken. Half an hour trying to use it and I’m back to the browser.
I would much rather read student work on my iPad, but alas, this just doesn’t cut it.
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Mostly good
I wouldn’t use this alone, but it is helpful when paired with the desktop version. I like the ability to write directly on my student’s pdf assignments (it would be great if it took fewer clicks for them to find that feedback, but that is not the fault of the Teacher app). I pretty much only use this to write on students’ work as I find everything else easier on the desktop .
I’ve removed my complaint about the February 2021 update since that has been resolved. The remaining issue that I have is that sometimes when I write feedback it doesn’t save the ends of sentences/words. It’s difficult to troubleshoot because I can see everything until I close the assignment and reopen it (which I don’t usually do). Unfortunately the students can get confused by comments with partial words or missing worlds! If I don’t feel too rushed I load the next paper then come back to the previous one and skim through the comments to make sure that everything shows up, but it is frustrating. (For reference I use an iPad Pro purchased in November 2019 and an Apple Pencil)
I’ve removed my complaint about the February 2021 update since that has been resolved. The remaining issue that I have is that sometimes when I write feedback it doesn’t save the ends of sentences/words. It’s difficult to troubleshoot because I can see everything until I close the assignment and reopen it (which I don’t usually do). Unfortunately the students can get confused by comments with partial words or missing worlds! If I don’t feel too rushed I load the next paper then come back to the previous one and skim through the comments to make sure that everything shows up, but it is frustrating. (For reference I use an iPad Pro purchased in November 2019 and an Apple Pencil)
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Sync
Way to hard to Sync grades to Skyward. The main thing is getting the grades over to Skyward. Software engineers should make this more seamless and easier to use. Also when school starts at the beginning of the year, it doesn’t need to populate all semesters of classes at once. I had 14 different classes show up at once and didn’t recognize the names. Think..... teachers aren’t coder’s and make this less complex and simpler looking interfaces. I would just make the whole Canvas software way easier to use, and do some real field tests with it in action and see some of the problems that come up. Some teachers have classes of 40+ and other classes are only 5 students. So class sizes should be limited, other wise you can’t tell if everyone is learning.
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Good way to keep up with class happenings
I use Canvas Teacher to monitor and grade for my classes. It is convenient and works well for the job. I can annotate on submitted assignments with my Apple Pencil, just like I am writing on paper. The app does not allow me to rotate pages, as far as I can tell, however. It is allowed on the web version on my PC but my markings done on the App end up being oriented incorrectly relative to the submitted page. Other than that, the app notifies me appropriately when submissions/messages occur in the class, and my very portable iPad allows me to take action.
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No Gradebook in the canvas app for teachers
I can’t believe I thought this would solve my ability to grade on the go and also see my grade book, but it’s just not there! Why do I have this app? Have no clue, it’s okay for responding to discussion posts and checking that students have assignments done in Waypoint, but that’s about all it can do. BRING THE GRADEBOOK TAB please. Many universities have teachers working on line and rely on portability but this app doesn’t make it. Have to go back to using my laptop and toting that around. Ugh!
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Still a Major Bug On Comment Submission: Moving from portrait to landscape erases comments!
Mind boggling! Even after two bug fixing updates major bugs will have you lose comments. As you type comments, if you rotate the iPad and view switches to portrait or landscape, your comments get erased! Anything you type can vanish just by tilting your iPad!
Unbelievable, even after latest update: In Speedgrader while in landscape mode on iPad, long comments cannot be submitted as the submit buttons vanishes. If you then turn the iPad to portrait mode, your comments get erased! Anything you type can vanish just by tilting your iPad! Outrageous waste of time. This app dev team is utterly incompetent. I loathe this app, but am required to use it.
Old (and still valid) review
Needs resizing of the Grade/Comments/File column in Grading mode
The app is not too bad, except for the fact that in grading view you cannot resize the column with comments. I have to grade hundreds of paper, and my eyesight is not great. It’s imperative you allow a resize of the Grade/Comments/File column. This would allow annotation with Apple Pencil on the full screen, and then typing comments in a larger space than that tiny column. This is a HUGE oversight to an obvious feature. It makes me wonder if any of these dev have any experience grading and teaching. Please fix this! Until then 2 stars.
Unbelievable, even after latest update: In Speedgrader while in landscape mode on iPad, long comments cannot be submitted as the submit buttons vanishes. If you then turn the iPad to portrait mode, your comments get erased! Anything you type can vanish just by tilting your iPad! Outrageous waste of time. This app dev team is utterly incompetent. I loathe this app, but am required to use it.
Old (and still valid) review
Needs resizing of the Grade/Comments/File column in Grading mode
The app is not too bad, except for the fact that in grading view you cannot resize the column with comments. I have to grade hundreds of paper, and my eyesight is not great. It’s imperative you allow a resize of the Grade/Comments/File column. This would allow annotation with Apple Pencil on the full screen, and then typing comments in a larger space than that tiny column. This is a HUGE oversight to an obvious feature. It makes me wonder if any of these dev have any experience grading and teaching. Please fix this! Until then 2 stars.
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Things I like and things I don’t
Likes
1) Ability to grade papers on iPad
2) Status of number of papers yet to grade
3) sorting of papers into “graded” and “ungraded” or “unsubmitted”
4) That it is finally fixed that only my current courses with submissions are showing up as choices
Dislikes
1) Some annotations become lost and I don’t know why (I will go back to a test and see part of my annotation is not there anymore)
2) Sometimes the program crashes mid-grading
3) Sometimes the program crashes when I re-grade an already graded (annotated) paper
4) Sometimes if I grade something as zero because of no submission, when I go back in to grade it (once they have submitted) the program will still tell me that there is no submission. I have to check the comments to find the submission
5) I wish there was a way to mark papers as missing like there is on the internet version. Sometimes students submit the wrong assignment, and, therefore, their assignment should still be coded as missing or unsubmitted
1) Ability to grade papers on iPad
2) Status of number of papers yet to grade
3) sorting of papers into “graded” and “ungraded” or “unsubmitted”
4) That it is finally fixed that only my current courses with submissions are showing up as choices
Dislikes
1) Some annotations become lost and I don’t know why (I will go back to a test and see part of my annotation is not there anymore)
2) Sometimes the program crashes mid-grading
3) Sometimes the program crashes when I re-grade an already graded (annotated) paper
4) Sometimes if I grade something as zero because of no submission, when I go back in to grade it (once they have submitted) the program will still tell me that there is no submission. I have to check the comments to find the submission
5) I wish there was a way to mark papers as missing like there is on the internet version. Sometimes students submit the wrong assignment, and, therefore, their assignment should still be coded as missing or unsubmitted
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