Hey everyone, welcome back! In this video, I'm going to be taking you through discussions: what they are, how they work, how you grade them, and how those of you that teach performance-based classes can really utilize this. It will help alleviate all the challenges that you're probably having right now, from going online to face-to-face. So, this is very, very, very important and going to be helpful for you. So, grab your cup of coffee, and let's get started!

Now, the screen you see right now has "Discussion" on the very top here. This is what your screen will look like when you open it; it is blank. This is an old shell that I keep going back to, to show you what yours looks like and how to get started. So, this is what yours looks like; it will have nothing on here. Click on the "Discussions" tab. When you open it up, the Discussion Posts will be empty.

Here's a great example of what a discussion is and how you can use it, and then I'm going to show you how to do it. For example, a great thing that you can do right now is the first discussion post you might want to utilize is to introduce yourself to the class. This is an old class that I taught online; I'm showing you right now. So, this is to introduce yourself to the class, and this is what I had them do for their very first assignment. It did have points.

When you go into a discussion post, the first thing you're gonna see is the explanation and the description of it. So, "Introduce yourself to the class! Welcome to the winter semester! Please take a moment to do these things: all blah, so they can record if they'd like to." I give them bullet points: tell us your name, where you're from, what you like to do for fun. Make sure that you have a Flash Player installed; if you want to upload a picture or video, you can. This is how you use it. Have fun with this!

Then, what they do is they start posting, and it's going to show you the posts just like you would a Facebook feed. They indent every single time they post, and I have students that post all kinds of really cool photos and videos. When they click "Reply" at the bottom, it starts to post on that thread. I had them announce what the research paper topic was going to be in my class, and it goes through and they post everything about what their topic is. Now, this one was not graded.

Actually, a couple of other options you have, and this is a great way to start thinking about how to use discussion, so let me explain how it works. The best thing you can do with discussion posts is—let me show you my favorite one—think of it as interaction. For example, here's a discussion post where I had them watch a video, and they have to post a response, and then they have to post on a few other students' responses as well. What you're doing is creating interaction with your students. This is the best thing you can do if you want to have interaction and activity with them and let them feel like a community where they can talk to each other right here on Canvas.

For example, I had them watch Hamilton and Phantom of the Opera. They got to choose one video to watch. I put the YouTube links right in here, and then they start posting. Then they comment on other students, and I require them to do this, and I put grades attached to it as well.

Another post that I thought was really great—I think this is the last one I did in this class—was I had them watch the Oscar Eustis, who is the artistic director of the public. I had them watch his TED talk, and then I had them reply with these ideas in mind. They had to answer these questions in their paragraph of their post: "Do you think theatre is important in democracy, and why? Do you think that Hamlet and the musical established a new norm for diversity, and why? Do you agree with what he says?" This is what they're expected to do.

So, what it does is it starts to create a community within the students, where they reply back and forth, and they are talking and discussing just like you would in your classroom. You can also utilize this for many other things. If you want the students to post a performance of themselves, then you have to have the students respond and give feedback. Focus on positive feedback: "What did they do well in that video?" I would really keep away from saying what they did wrong or what they could improve on; it starts to get a little uncomfortable in the online format. Really try to go positive: "What did you think? What went really well? What stood out to you about this performer? What did you like about their monologue?"

You can post a concert here and have them watch it, or a clip. You could post a video of you talking in here and have them respond to a discussion that you created for them. Now, I'll tell you what—I'll be honest with you: when I've had my students do this, it has literally changed everything. So, let's make one together, okay?

Go to Discussions of Creating Discussion Posts course, and I already have one up here. I'll show you what all this means in a sec. The first thing you want to do is just go to the blue button at the top where it says "Discussion" with the plus sign next to it. Click on that, add discussion. This is the same idea that you did with modules when you created pages; it’s very similar to creating a page.

So, details: here's the topic title—whatever your topic is. When you're putting this in your modules and accumulating those separate modules that I talked about in the last video (which I'll link up in the cards for you in case you didn't catch it), make sure that you are titling them either with the theme or discussion post number—like "Discussion Post Number One" or "Discussion Post Number Two," just like I do over here in my discussions. You'll see if they click just this tab; it’s number one, two, three, and four.

If you want to do an introduce yourself title, do that a little differently. For the topic title, I'm gonna do this: I'm going to do "Introduce Yourself to the Class" because I think it's a great way to start, and it's also a great way for them to get acclimated with how it works. You can put this as no points or whatnot, so "Introduce Yourself."

Write your text in here. Give them bullet points, so go over here to your bullets, click on that, and tell them exactly what you want. Be specific—again, less text, more bullet points. Tell them what you want them to do, okay? The next thing you want them to do is reply to at least one student's post, and then put a little reminder to hit them as well.

I'll show you how to click this in a sec, but keep in mind that you will not see other students' replies until you first post a reply. So, they have to post before they can see everything. You want to make this set up this way, so that they don't see everything and then they post. You want them to post without seeing everybody else's comments; that way, in the future, they're used to it when it's for a grade.

Alright, so whatever you want in here: if you want to post a video or photo, it's the same as we've been doing before. If you want to post a photo or a video again, just go to the right over here, click "Images," and you will be able to upload an image from your desktop or your files. If you want to post a video that they're going to respond to, go over here to "Insert Media," and you would copy the YouTube link right in here. Then you would click "OK," and it would pop in this box just like I've shown you in past videos.

Okay, if you want to make a link to something, like if, say, I want to make this entire line a link, and the text says "Watch this" or whatever, then you would click here, and then you would link it to something outside. I will keep reminding you about this: you really want to make everything in Canvas. So, if you want them to watch a video, literally pop the YouTube video in here. If you want them to read an article, you could say "Read this article," whatever it is—describe it for them.

Always describe what they're doing. Click this link, type or copy and paste the link here, click "Insert Link," and then it will highlight this, and it typically turns blue. Then all they have to do is click on it; it will open in another box, and they can read that article.

Okay, you want to make sure it says "All Sections Grading Discussion Posts." Yes, absolutely! You want to allow threaded replies so they can reply to each other. You want to click "Users must post before seeing replies" because you want them to get used to having to post their initial response without reading everybody else's. I wouldn't worry about the podcast feed. Do you want it to be graded or not?

For the first one, as a practice round, I would not have it graded just because it's a little bit easier that way, unless you want to give them some extra points to make them feel good—then yeah, go for it. If you want to click graded, this pops down. It would be a group discussion; you would click that. How many points do you want it to be? Do you want it to be points? Do you want it to be a complete or incomplete? That’s a really awesome way to do this as well. That’s what I do when I have them just post a topic discussion: a letter grade. You could have your options here as well.

Then you'll want to put it in a group, however you want to group this as well. I wouldn't do peer reviews right now; start simple, and then you can get to that if that's something you're interested in. Okay? And then, say you're not grading it, then that will all go away.

Allow liking: think of allow liking as like on Instagram or Facebook. They heart it or like it; they're giving it a thumbs up, and then they click thumbs up in the post. For example, if I take you to this discussion, the thumbs up looks like this. See the thumbs up? I just click it, and it's like, "Oh, one like!" That’s the example.

So, allow liking: I let them all like. Add to student to-do: now this will pop up a lot on the assignments. Think of the student to-do list: it will pop up for them on the right side, so that they see it and they know that they need to do it. If it's an assignment, I say "Add to Student To-Do List." Again, it makes it easier for the students because on the right side of their screen, all of the things that you absolutely want them to do because it's an assignment will pop up for them like a list, which is great!

Click this little calendar icon, and now you're going to put in the day or time that it's due. So, say I want it to be due Monday. Click the day, say I want it to be due at 12:00 midnight. Keep in mind that these students, whether you're transferring from face-to-face to online or you're just teaching an online class and you're watching this after the winter-spring 2020 debacle, you want to really give them the same time windows for everything—be consistent. I like leaving it until midnight; that really works for me because then those folks that are working really late at night when their children are sleeping—it's really helpful for them. Or folks that just are night owls, or they want to get up really early and finish it before they go to work.

I like to give them a long window of time available from and until; this is the window of time that this assignment and/or this discussion post will be available to the students. Afterwards, it closes, and this really forces them to say, "Hey, you have this time frame to get it done. Anytime in that time frame is awesome, but this is the only time you have." So, say you want to set it up starting tomorrow, and you want it to start at 1:00 a.m. or whatever you want because, let's be honest, they're probably working at that time anyway, and they're online.

Then, say I wanted to see the due date. I already said it was March 23rd at 12:00 p.m. So, I can do that. March 23rd, actually 12:00 p.m. is lunchtime, so I like to do 11:59 p.m., which is right before midnight. For some reason, that really works for my brain, but again, whatever you want. I would say don't make it in the middle of the day because that gets really confusing for them.

I will be honest with you; a lot of them are going to wait until the last moment to do this, so give them the late part of the night to do it. Okay? So, that's when it's available from and until. You want to make sure that these dates match up, so it's due here, it's due here.

After you have all of that information, all you need to do is click "Save." Once you click "Save," don't click "Publish" yet because you may not be ready to publish it. Once you click "Save," you can see what it looks like. Now the students will go down here; they will click "Reply," and then they will post. It'll give them a text box; they can post or do whatever else that they would like. They can upload a picture or a photo.

Okay, now after you do that, you'll want to make sure that when you're ready to publish it, you click "Publish." Once you publish it, if your course is published, they will instantly see it. So, that is how it works on creating it. Once they start posting on the discussion board—and this is a class that's already done—it will look like this. They will post their text. When students start posting underneath it, it kind of indents it so you can see that it's indented. This is a student's initial post; these are all the students that have replied to it.

Hey! What it also does is it shows you what you have looked at and what you haven't looked at. So, let me go back. Okay, so you can see that I just made this discussion, and this isn't a class right now that I'm actually finishing up; it's not published, so it's not active. This one is now. This is a post I already did. See these on the right over here? The green button means it's published; this number over here is how many replies; this number is how many unread replies that you have not visually looked at. Canvas allows you to scroll through them, and as you're looking at them, it will uncheck that box.

So, let me show you what this looks like. When you click it, you will see all of the replies, and the students see the replies as they're posted. Okay, so see these little dots over here? It's not; it's empty. The dot is white because I have already read those. Let me show you some blue ones that I never went through, even though I saw them because it pops up migrating. See the blue dot? In a second it goes away; that means I have read it because I have literally looked at it. See the blue dots? Blue dots go away because I have read them.

So, it keeps you updated on what you have read and what you haven't read. Okay, what else? It's going to do is it's going to allow you to see this in SpeedGrader. I haven't gone over SpeedGrader just yet, but I want to do it within this module because it's related to grading these topics. If you assign a grade to these topics, click over to SpeedGrader right here. Click your hamburger—I call it a hamburger; I think it's funny. Haha, have a laugh; it'll help.

Okay, click SpeedGrader. SpeedGrader takes you into that class, and now you can go through and click "Complete" or "Incomplete" if you've set it up for that. I did this as no grade; it's completed; you did it, and complete. You didn't do it. Okay, let's say it's graded. So, you've set this up down here, so this one I have already set up that was graded; this is an old class. It's complete; you can see here; put all the information in down here; it's graded. Okay, they get ten points; I wanted it to show up in their grade as a percentage, and I put it in the discussions group, which you really want to stick to. It keeps it all organized for them; I'm one in one area—discussions grade.

So, I've made this a grade. Now, let's go back. Let me get out of this. Cancel. Okay, now say I want to go through and grade this. Click your hamburger; it will pop up. Go to SpeedGrader; it will take you into the speed grading section for that assignment, and you will be able to see the grade on the right side. If you want to add a rubric, you can; I will showcase how to add a rubric coming up because it's a lot of extra time, and I don't want these videos to get too long for you, but I have a rubric in here that's helpful for them.

I'll show you how to do that in another video, so you go over here, and you give them a grade, and then you can give them any comments that you want. You can go back and forth 100% with just that one student for that assignment, and this is how you can give them grades for an interactive assignment. It's really, really amazing; this is the best way that you can get them involved, and you can stay engaged with them and give them a grade and assess them for an interactive assignment.

You can see the blue dot has already gone down, so I know that I still have sixteen more that I need to look at. If you go through SpeedGrader, it does not lower this number; you literally have to click on here and scroll down through them, so all the blue dots go away.

Alright, I think that is everything for discussion posts. If you have any questions, please leave them in the comments below so that I can help you, and somebody else may have the same question. I am adding to this tutorial list as the days go by as fast as I can, so click the subscribe button at the bottom, and you'll see it; they will all be in this playlist as well. Alright, have fun creating your discussions! I'll see you in the next video.