I am looking for a way to quickly record if a student has completed daily PAPER homework as I walk around the room and record it in Canvas. Currently I record it on a paper seating chart and transfer to Canvas later.
@CassieSprenger
Canvas used to have a mobile app named MagicMarker that was designed to quickly record things that happen during class. I had last looked for it almost exactly 4 years ago when someone asked about it. I mentioned at the time to not get your hopes up that it was still supported. The link to the documentation doesn't work anymore and almost every reference has been scrubbed from the Canvas community. Let's assume that's not an option.
It sounds like your grade has only two scores. If you have more than two scores possible, then it's probably faster to just enter them directly into the gradebook.
Here's how I would handle your situation using the Canvas gradebook (not SpeedGrader) in a web browser.
In the sad situation where more students do not complete the assignment than do, you would reverse the order. Put in the grade for those who did the homework and use Set default grade to assign the grade to those who did not.
Another option is to export the gradebook, open it in Excel, make the changes and save it, and then import it back into Canvas. There's obviously some extra overhead involved in that process, but it may have some advantage if you only enter grades periodically rather than daily (not a best practice), if you want to sort the list by the order the sit in the classroom to make grade transfer easier,
If you wanted to, you could export the gradebook once at the beginning of the semester and delete all the columns except for the required ones and those that relate to the homework grades you're talking about. Then you could quickly enter the grades each day, save the Excel gradebook, and import it into Canvas. There would not need to be a reason to re-export the gradebook unless you added new assignments to Canvas. If you deleted or unpublished an assignment in Canvas, you could just delete the corresponding column from your spreadsheet.
The next option is not a possibility for most people, but I mention it in case you have some programming skill (or have support from someone who does). That's to create your own external system.
I record attendance daily in my general education statistics classes, but I only have four grades in Canvas for attendance for the term. I have 44 meeting periods during my term and so every 11 days is rolled into one assignment. It also keeps the number of assignments in the gradebook down (my assignments load soooo slowly as it is). I want to update the grade daily (best practice), but there is that extra calculation involved of combining attendance into a single grade. I have a Google Sheet I use to take attendance with the proportion of each day they attended (1=full attendance, 0.5=half attendance, 0=absent). I round to the nearest 0.1 of a class period. Then my sheet uses Google Apps Script to add a menu that updates grades using the Canvas API. As students filter into class, I quickly put a 1 in the roster. I adjust as people filter in or leave early. At the end of class, I run the menu command to update the grades.
That's similar to what you want, but not at all trivial for someone without programming skills to accomplish. It shows how Canvas is flexible enough that people can write their own solutions.
You could try using a digital tool to streamline this process. One option could be using the Canvas app to mark attendance or record homework completion directly on the seating chart, saving you time from transferring data later. Additionally, I recommend the use of 'Homework ify' for efficient task management. It’s a great tool to stay organized and on top of assignments.
With the new SpeedGrader UI, we are seeing student names appear in the page title even when the “Hide student names” setting is enabled. When using Classic Quizzes, there is no option within the quiz settings to enable anonymous grading, so we rely on instructors using the hide student names setting in SpeedGrader to…
Has anyone had a chance to try this with a Canvas quiz? Seems it may have a similar effect as ChatGPT Atlas able to provide all the answers to an open Quiz. https://www.theregister.com/2026/03/05/microsoft_adds_a_sidepane_for/
When you are creating a quiz and/or also reviewing a quiz in Canvas after the class has taken it, the questions aren't numbered so after you get past the first few questions, there is no way to even tell what number you are on. Can someone change that?
Speedgrader chaning file name when being downloaded. Speedgrader: When downloading a submitted assignment, the file name is being changed to an unrecognizable name — (Student's actual name was part of the file name — changed for privacy.) Ideas???
We are all familiar with the standard Course Calendar, where assignment due dates are automatically added. However, at my institution, we structure our assignments as Challenges that develop over a period of time, rather than just a single deadline. Currently, the calendar only highlights the "end point." It would be a…
