Canvas 3.0

IMPORTANT NOTES: 
  • Troubleshooting? Check out our guide here.

In this article

There are a few simple steps to integrate PlayPosit with your Canvas course.

  1. Launch PlayPosit in Canvas
  2. Assign a graded Bulb to learners
  3. Assign a non-graded Bulb to learners
  4. Monitor learner responses
  5. Sync scores to Canvas Gradebook
  6. Course copy
  7. Multiple sections
  8. Embedding Bulbs

Why use PlayPosit in Canvas?

  1. Single Sign-on: Instructors and learners are never prompted to enter a separate email, username or password to create or view content.
  2. Auto-sync course data: We manage learner-course relationships, eliminating the need to manually create courses or upload rosters.
  3. Auto-sync grades: Learner grades are synced immediately with the Canvas Gradebook at the end of a Bulb. As well, instructors can access the rich analytics from any PlayPosit link within Canvas. 
  4. Co-instructor collaboration: Multiple instructors, instructional designers and TAs can access their own PlayPosit content and manage any shared course content, like Bulbs and analytics. 
  5. Course copy: Instructors can save time by seamlessly copying PlayPosit links to recurring courses. The new course and learner roster is automatically synced and previous data is cleared. 
  6. Content Item Message (CIM): Instructors can instantly access and embed their PlayPosit content from the rich text editor of any Assignment, Module or Page.

Video Tutorial

Launch PlayPosit in Canvas

PlayPosit is integrated into your Canvas environment by your administrator. Follow the steps below to add PlayPosit to your course and begin building a Bulb (interactive video). 

  1. Login to Canvas and navigate to the course you would like to connect to PlayPosit.
  2. Select Assignments from the left column menu and add a new assignment.

  3. Enter "PlayPosit Setup" in the Assignment Name field. 
  4. Scroll down to Submission Type.
    1. Select External Tool
    2. Find and select PlayPosit from the pop-up menu

  5. Click Enter PlayPosit.

  6. You have now authenticated into your PlayPosit account. Search through our Premade Bulb library or click Add New Bulb to begin building your own video. Learn more here

Assign a graded Bulb to students

Playposit Bulbs must be linked to Canvas as assignments in order to auto-export grades into the Canvas Gradebook. Grade export is not supported for Modules, Pages, etc., but data will still be collected on the PlayPosit monitor page.

  1. Login to Canvas and navigate to the course you would like to connect to PlayPosit.
  2. Select Assignments from the left column menu and add a new assignment.
  3. In the Assignment Name field, enter the name of your lesson.
    1. (Optional, but recommended) Add a Description to provide supplemental instructions to students.
    2. (Optional, but recommended) Complete fields for Points, Assignment Group and Display

    Note: Complete/Incomplete grading is not compatible with PlayPosit. We do not recommend using this grading option.

  4. Scroll down to Submission Type.
    1. Select External Tool.
    2. Find and select PlayPosit from the pop-up menu.
  5. Click Set Link to access your Bulb library. 

  6. Find the Bulb you want to link to this assignment and click the Canvas icon.

  7. Select the learner experience and click Set Link
    1. Self-paced - Choose this option if you want learners to take the Bulb individually, on their own device, at their own time (most commonly used).
    2. Broadcast - Choose this option if you want learners to complete the Bulb synchronously in class. Click here to learn more. 
  8. When you are redirected to Canvas, click Select on the pop-up menu.

  9. Set a Due Date and click Save & Publish.
NOTES:
  • After the Due Date, learners can still revisit the bulb and review their responses. If learners haven’t completed the bulb before the due date, they can still complete it as long as the assignment is available. And their grades in the grade book will be marked late.
  • After the Until Date, the Bulb will not be accessible to all learners. If the instructor wishes to let learners review the Bulb after the until date without grade passback, please follow the instruction in the next section to link the bulb as a non-graded item in Canvas.

Assign a non-graded Bulb to students 

If you follow the instructions below for assigning a non-graded Bulb to students, please note that learner grades will not be auto-exported into the Canvas Gradebook. However, data analytics will still be recorded and visible to the instructor on the PlayPosit assignment's Question-by-Question Breakdown dashboard.

  1. Create a new Assignment, Module, Page, Discussion or Quiz.
  2. Select the PlayPosit icon from the rich text editor or click on the Apps icon and find PlayPosit from the dropdown menu.

  3. Click Set Link to access your Bulb library. 

  4. Find the Bulb you want to link and click the Canvas icon.

  5. Select the learner experience:
    1. Self-paced - Choose this option if you want learners to take the Bulb individually, on their own device, at their own time (most commonly used).
    2. Broadcast - Choose this option if you want learners to complete the Bulb synchronously in class. Click here to learn more. 
  6. Select how the Bulb appears:
    1. Embed - Choose this option to display the player for learners in the assignment. This is the only option that will allow instructors to adjust the size of the player.
    2. Show as Link - Choose this option to redirect learners to the player link. This will load the player within the same tab as their LMS.

    3. Load in a new tab - Choose this option to redirect learners to the player link. This will load the player in a new tab.

  7. Make sure Submission Type is set to No Submission.
  8. Set a Due Date and click Save & Publish.

Monitor learner responses

Monitor to view analytics, discussion posts, and learner notes. To learn more about monitoring discussion posts, click here. To learn more about viewing learner notes, click here.

  1. From Canvas, click on the assignment for which you want to view data. This will open Manage Bulb Link, with the Bulb you have attached. 
  2. Click Monitor to view learner analytics. Click here to learn more about PlayPosit Bulb analytics. Click here to learn more about PlayPosit Playlist analytics.  

Sync scores into Canvas Gradebook

PlayPosit will convert the points the learner acquired from the bulb into the percentage format and send it to Canvas. The points will then be automatically converted into the grading format the instructor set in the Canvas.

For example, the bulb is worth 20 points, and the assignment is worth 10 points in Canvas. If the learner gets 10 points from the bulb, PlayPosit will convert it into 50% and send this information to Canvas, and then Canvas will transfer this information into 5 points and store it in the gradebook.

NOTES: 
  1. If the grading in the Canvas assignment is set to complete/incomplete, PlayPosit will only pass back the complete status to Canvas when learners finish the bulb, and instructors will have to manually assign the incomplete status to the Canvas gradebook for learners who didn't take the bulb.
  2. If the bulb is worth 0 points, PlayPosit will pass back 100% to the Canvas grade book when the learner completes the bulb.

If the bulb only includes auto-graded questions (multiple choice, check-all-that-apply, fill-in-the-blank), then grades will be automatically exported into the Canvas Gradebook. For the free response interaction, please follow the steps below to grade learners' responses manually. After grading free-response questions or edited grades for auto-graded questions, Please remember to  sync changes with the Canvas Gradebook.

  1. Navigate to the Monitor page of the assignment you want to grade.

  2. Here you'll be able to view and score learner data and track progress. Please click the learner response that needs to be graded and provide points for it.    

  3. When you are ready to send updated scores to the Canvas gradebook, click Sync Grades

     Grades can also be synced for individual students. Select the students on the left and click Sync Grades

  4. Optionally, click Check Sync Status to check the status of grade sync, but note that it may take a few minutes to push all updated scores to the Canvas Gradebook. 

Course copy

PlayPosit supports Canvas's course copy feature. This means:

  • All PlayPosit links and Bulbs will transfer to the new course.
  • If any students are retaking the course, previous scores will be reset automatically.

For more information on individual course copy, click here.

For more information on Blueprint courses, click here

For more information on importing from Canvas Commons, click here

IMPORTANT information when using course copy: 

  • All master and child courses are linked to the same Bulb, but when a course is copied, student attempts will be saved in individual sections within PlayPosit and Canvas.
  • Assignments linked through rich text editor will also copy over. 
  • Anyone launching a Bulb linked in a child Blueprint course or importing from Canvas Commons will be given facilitator access to all the Bulbs linked in that course. For more information on the roles and permissions of a facilitator, click here.
    • Only courses that you share in Canvas Commons can be imported by others.
  • Instructors will not see Bulbs in the Classes tab of their PlayPosit dashboard for copied courses until someone launches the Bulb from the copied course in Canvas.
  • In order to trigger this process, students or instructors must launch at least one Bulb.
  • Learners or instructors launching a Bulb from a copied Canvas course for the first time will see a blue screen asking them to refresh the page. Refreshing the page will correctly launch the copied assignment. 
  • If a linked Bulb is changed or deleted in the Master course or Master Blueprint course, those changes are also made to Bulbs linked in the child copied courses for that assignment, since all courses are linked to the same Bulb.
  • If a linked Bulb is changed or deleted in a child course of Canvas blueprint course, subsequent changes to the blueprint course for that assignment will not be synced to the child course.

Multiple sections

Note: This feature is only available for certain institutional clients. Please reach out to the Account Manager or help@playposit.org to add this feature. 

Link a Bulb by following the graded workflow

Once the Bulb is linked, initially, only one section will appear. Once a learner launches the Bulb from their section, that section will now appear under Classes in PlayPosit. All sections will be added on subsequent learner launches.

Embedding Bulbs

PlayPosit/Canvas LTI integration does not support embedding Bulbs using an embed code. 

If instructors choose to use the embed code:

  • Students will be prompted to sign into PlayPosit with a username/password.
  • Grades will not auto-sync from PlayPosit to Canvas.

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