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I’m back with another excellent James Jones Canvas Tampermonkey script (Jones’s full description). If you don’t yet have Tampermonkey installed in your web browser, visit the Tampermonkey website and click the first download button, not the beta version. What does the Autofill Maximum Rubric Ratings script do? Once installed, the script adds a Max button at the top of the rubric in the Pts cell. Clicking the Max button selects the maximum points cell for all of the criteria in your rubric. There are a couple ways you can use it. 1) Click Max to start with your rubric at maximum points, and then asRead More →

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Outlook notifications are the little popups that appear in the bottom right corner of your screen that scream “PAY ATTENTION TO ME!!!” There are a couple very good reasons to turn them off. First, every time they appear, what we are doing is interrupted. If we are in the middle of a thought, our attention goes to the notification, and then we need a few seconds to refocus on what we were doing to begin with. Every. @&%#$^. Time. Consider how many messages you receive in a day. Those seconds add up. The second very good reason to turn them off is if you happenRead More →

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As frequent readers of this blog know, I’m a fan of everyone who has the skill to create scripts that make Canvas better. This post will feature another James Jones script (thank you, James!). Like other scripts, this one uses the Tampermonkey add-on for your browser. If you don’t yet have Tampermonkey installed, visit the Tampermonkey website and click the first download button, not the beta version. What the “add color course border” script does Since all Canvas courses look the same, it can be hard to tell at first glance which course you are in. The “add color course border” script provides a handyRead More →

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I’ve written before about using Tampermonkey scripts for adding functionality to Canvas. If you’re not familiar with Tampermonkey scripts for Canvas, please read that post first. I have another one for my fellow intrepid Canvas users. This one comes from Ben Fisher of Crean Lutheran High School, known as fisher1 in the Canvas Community forums. Read his post here. What the “Set Canvas Default Due Times” script does Everywhere you can add a time for when an assignment, quiz, or discussion is due, you will have time buttons to choose from. Yes, you can decide what those times are. All of my course stuff isRead More →

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For Windows users, there is free collection of utilities called PowerToys that add some functionality to Windows. While there are a dozen tools in PowerToys, there are two I’m particularly enamored with: mouse utilities and video conference mute. Working with two or three screens, it can be a challenge to find my mouse pointer. Frankly, I’m tired of moving my mouse around and glancing from screen to screen hoping to catch the movement. With mouse utilities, pressing the left CTRL button on my keyboard twice darkens all screens and gives my pointer a spotlight. In the screenshot below, my mouse pointer was in the centerRead More →

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Let’s start with the easiest solution. Browser bookmarks bar Your web browser bookmarks bar sits directly under the search/web address bar. If it’s not there, turn it on. In Firefox, click the 3-line icon in the top right corner of the window. Click on bookmarks. Select “Show bookmarks bar.” To turn it on in Chrome, it’s the exact same process, except it’s a 3-dot icon, not a 3-line icon. Or, in Firefox, right-click in any empty space to the right of the search/web address bar. Mouse over Bookmarks Toolbar and select Always Show. To add bookmarks, visit the page you want to bookmark, highlight theRead More →

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Friends and colleagues, I’m exploring offering Zoom-based Technology for Academics online workshops as a professional development opportunity. Each workshop would be limited to 10 to 15 participants, be no longer than 60 to 90 minutes including hands-on practice time, and would feature a tool especially useful to instructors. For example, one workshop—Grading Hacks #1—would be an introduction to the text expander, Phrase Express. Using this tool to create keyboard shortcuts for long words, phrases, sentences, and paragraphs that you use frequently will greatly reduce the time it takes you to reply to email and to mark student assignments. By the end of the workshop, youRead More →

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The clipboard manager I’m thinking about is not a manager who stands around holding a clipboard. Your computer clipboard holds onto things you’ve copied, making them available for you to paste. Apps that manage this clipboard are called clipboard managers. A little history Historically, computer clipboards have not been very useful. The clipboard could hold one item. You would copy something, such as text or an image, and it was available for you to paste, until you copied something else. And then that first copied item would no longer be on your clipboard. From what I can suss out, this is how Macs still work,Read More →

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The problem: I have a file folder that contains assignments that I have not yet updated for next term. How do I remember that I have not updated these, besides using a clunky README file? There are a lot of sticky note programs out there, but almost all of them only put sticky notes on your desktop. I have enough stuff on my desktop—albeit corralled by Fences, but still. Frankly, I needed something that was more context dependent. I only need a reminder about these particular files when I’m looking at the folder they’re in. I don’t need the sticky note anywhere else. If youRead More →

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Let’s take a look at your home Internet setup. With many of us working at home and sharing our home wifi with kids, spouses, ex-spouses, extended family, and the mysterious person you suspect might be living in your basement, here are a few suggestions for evaluating and improving your speed on your home network. Let’s get some data, first. Using your wifi-connected laptop, tablet, or phone, move close to your modem/router.* On your device, go to Speedtest.net, and click the Go button. Once speedtest is done running, you’ll have two numbers. The first will be your download speed—how quickly information moves from the Internet toRead More →