December 2022
PDF Annotations
- PDF Annotations
- Highlight text and drop pins anywhere in a PDF
- Add your own comments and reply to others’ annotations
- Easily jump to new annotations and unread replies
- Tag other users in comments and replies
Milestone Date Restrictions
- Milestone due dates now have limits to better align with assignment due and availability dates
- Helps prevent students’ submissions from being marked late by the gradebook
November 2022
Header Support Added for Posts and Instructions
- This month we've added support headers in both topic instructions and posts. When adding text, both instructors and students will see an option to mark text as a header.
- Once published, text marked as a header will have both a visual prominence from regular text and assistive tools like screen readers will properly announce and navigate
September 2022
Updates to Milestones
This month we’ve made milestones an even more effective tool for helping students remember deadlines and contribute to discussions.
This includes the following new capabilities:
- Students will have a dedicated To Do list in Harmonize that shows all of the deadlines across any course using Harmonize
- Milestones will be visible in students’ calendars in Canvas
This addresses one of our most requested features, so we hope you’re as excited about these new capabilities as we are!
Action Required for Canvas Users
If you are using Canvas and would like to sync milestones to the student calendar in Canvas you will need to configure or update your Canvas API integration for Harmonize. Canvas Admins can follow this guide or open a ticket with Harmonize Support for assistance.
August 2022
Updated Video and Image Annotations
We are excited to announce that annotations in Harmonize are getting more social!
We’ve expanded annotations so that you can easily add image & video annotations inline like other content added to posts, comments, and replies.
This makes it possible for:
- Students to easily annotate other students’ work
- Instructors to create more dynamic discussions that are centered around annotating an image or video
- Instructors to make a private annotation on an image or video
Click here to see how it works!
Excited to try it?
Instructors can enable it in individual courses by selecting the Course Settings option. Select the four square icon in the header in Harmonize and select Course Settings and then enable Social Annotations on.
This will be enabled for all courses by default at the end of December 2022.
July 2022
Improved User Experience for Video Annotations
- The improved controls for video annotations makes it easier to navigate between timestamps and add a new annotation in a video.
Ability to Leave a Group Chat
- Instructors and students can now leave chat conversations, making it easier to stay focused on the most relevant conversations.
- Want to get back in on the chat? No problem - you can always join back into the conversation after you’ve left.
June 2022
New Canvas API Features
- Configuring the Canvas API Integration in Harmonize allows group and section details to be automatically synchronized to Harmonize as well as be able to set rubric and assignment date values directly from Harmonize.
- Configuring Your Canvas API Integration in Harmonize
Rubrics
- Instructors can assess student work more easily in Harmonize with the ability to select a rubric in Canvas that they’d like to use when assessing an assignment in Harmonize.
Sections
- Instructors can now filter by course section in Canvas, making it easier to see how students in a particular section are engaging with content in the course.
Dates
- Instructors can now edit Canvas assignment dates directly in Harmonize, making it easier to set milestones and ensure students have clear expectations.
May 2022
Blackboard Grades & Harmonize
- Our expanded Blackboard Gradebook notifications in Blackboard Learn and Ultra make it even easier for instructors to see when a student’s work is ready to be graded!
- Instructors will now see an alert in the Blackboard gradebook to indicate that a student’s work needs grading.
- Instructors can then easily view and grade the student work in Harmonize using the Grades & Activity view.
Setting Your Preferred Name in Harmonize
- Students and instructors can now easily update their Name in Harmonize to their default Display Name set in Canvas, their Full Name, or a Custom Name, by clicking on their profile link and changing the Name Source.
- Setting Your Preferred Name in Harmonize
April 2022
Instructor can mark a comment or reply as Private
- Sometimes students need some additional guidance or help getting back into the conversation, and it’s tough to do that publicly in a discussion board. With this latest release, instructors can foster a safe and supportive environment by easily sharing feedback with a student privately. Instructors now have the option to ‘Mark as Private Comment’ when responding to a student’s post.
- Private Comments and Replies
March 2022
Adding Comments to Grade Book
- Instructors can now add a comment in the grade book for Brightspace, Blackboard & Moodle.
- Submitting Comments to the Gradebook
Engagement Insights Notification
- Instructors can identify students that are at risk more easily with expanded notifications for Engagement Insights. Every 2 weeks, instructors will be prompted with details on students that are at risk that they haven’t viewed yet. They can easily view more details on the students’ recent activity and reach out to them from the Engagement Insights dashboard.
Chat: New Marker
- Easily identify Chats that you have not read with a New Indicator separating read and unread messages.
February 2022
Engagement Insights
- Engagement Insights makes it easy for instructors to proactively monitor student engagement and provide support for students that are struggling or at risk.
- Engagement Insights
Engage & Retain More Students
With Engagement Insights, you can:
- Make it easier for instructors to focus on the students that need more support
Ease instructor workload by giving instructors clear visibility into which students are struggling and may be at risk. With Engagement Insights, instructors can spend less time trying to figure out which students need help and more time focusing on the students that need it. - Promote equitable engagement
Minimize the potential for bias by providing instructors with more visibility into their class. It can be easy for instructors to focus on the students that are interacting the most, but these students often aren’t the ones most in need of support. With Engagement Insights, it’s easier for instructors to identify and engage with students they may otherwise miss. - Support student retention
Empower instructors to re-engage at risk students before they drop a course. With Engagement Insights, instructors get an early warning to alert them to which students are at risk, and why, so they can intervene before it’s too late. - Ensure compliance with RSI guidelines
Avoid putting more administrative burden on instructors and ensure compliance with RSI guidelines by providing instructors with the ability to easily monitor student engagement in their course.
Here’s How it Works
- Engagement Insights uses modern AI data science to examine how students are engaging in course discussions relative to their peers.
New Grid Icon in Header
- You can now easily access all that Harmonize has to offer from one click with the new Grid Icon that is in the top navigation bar.