Canvas LMS: How to Validate Links in a Course

I’m not sure if this feature is new or not, but it certainly makes validating all of the links in a Canvas course easy to check.

Start by logging into Canvas and going into the course you want to validate. In the left navigator, click on the “Settings” link:

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On the Settings page, look in the right navigator for the “Validate Links in Content” link and click on it.

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From the Course Link Validator page you can click on the button to start validating all of the links in all of your content in your course. It may take a few minutes for it to complete, so be patient.

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Once completed, you will see a list of all of the content with the associated links that are broken. You can then restart the link validation after you fix and links that the validator finds are broken.

I hope this helps you in developing quality Canvas course shells.

You Really Should Give This a Try

One thing that presenters are always wanting to find out after their presentaiton, is how well they did and did the audience walk away with what you expected them to. Well, please head on over to https://getkahoot.com, sign up and give it a try.

Here are some things I would like to see presenters try:

  • Use several Kahoot surveys during a presentaion to find out how people are digging what you are talking about
  • Use a Kahoot quiz to assess one or two technical topics during a presentation
  • Add some gamification to your session as well using Kahoot
  • Bottom line – make your presentation interactive with Kahoot

Let me know what you think of Kahoot, as I would be interested to hear what you think about it, and it’s use in a professional presentation.

Go sign up for Kahoot now >

 

Why Feedback Matters

It’s now been a little over a week since the Fall Quarter ended at Clark College and it’s time to review anonymous feedback students left on the popular RateMyProfessors.com site.

Now, this post may see a bit “ASW-ish”, but when you truly enjoy what you are doing and you are making an impact on peoples lives, why not share it? 

Here are some the reviews left in the past 30 days:

CTEC 121 – Intro to Programming and Problem Solving

Awesome teacher and a great class, I really learned a lot. I never felt like I couldn’t ask questions, and he joked with the class a lot to make it a really comfortable environment to learn in. There is a lot of homework, but it was fun to do, and he was always available to answer questions. An all around fantastic class.

CTEC 165 – Business Web Practices

Each week Bruce Elgort brought in speakers to conduct presentations. He went all out to find interesting people that could speak on a variety of subjects related to “Business Web Practices”. I am usually fighting off sleep when forced to endure presentations, but these were often fun and always very interesting to listen to.

CTEC 228 – API and Advanced Integration

Bruce Elgort is very organized, easy to understand, available for help,& definitely cares about his students. He goes the extra mile to provide guidance and help when you need it.

CTEC 121 – Intro to Programming and Problem Solving

Bruce Elgort is very organized, easy to understand, available for help,& definitely cares about his students. He goes the extra mile to provide guidance and help when you need it.

CTEC 228 – API and Advanced Integration

Bruce is an amazing instructor, He makes himself available 27/7 for help, His classes are hard, but its programming, and programming is hard. Bruce make class fun and he teaches useful techniques that can be applied to many programming languages.

CTEC 121 – Intro to Programming and Problem Solving

Bruce is probably one of the best professors I’ve ever had. He’s extremely knowledgeable in his field and he is always excited to teach you more, if you just ask about it. He has a great talent for teaching to the average student, but also giving unique challenges to the student who is ready for something a bit more complicated.

CTEC 121 – Intro to Programming and Problem Solving

A very enjoyable professor. I had him and he made everything interesting in his own way. Quizzes and homework almost every week, but if you go to class and do some reading it will be a breeze. If you need help is almost always online and ready to help you with whatever roadblocks you run into. I’m definitely looking forward to taking him again.

CTEC 121 – Intro to Programming and Problem Solving

Bruce extremely helpful! He is very smart and knows the subject in and out! He’s always available for help! He is very funny and makes class very enjoyable!

Here are all of the reviews left on RateMyProfessors.com.

Are You Looking for a Change? Let’s (all) Chat

The one thing I have been doing more and more of lately is helping people find their way in the world of ever changing technology. Most of them from the IBM Lotus Notes/Domino/XPages world. As a result, I have fired up a Slack group of friends, collegues and students to talk about what I call “Career 2.0”. If you want to join this diverse and dynamic group of individuals on Slack, please send me your email address and I would be happy to add you to the group.

See you on Slack.

Three Years as a College Professor

This month I completed my third year as a professor at Clark College, located in Vancouver, Washington. Here are the courses I have taught:

  • HTML Fundamentals (CTEC 122)
  • JavaScript (CTEC 126)
  • Intro to Programming and Problem Solving with Python (CTEC 121)
  • PHP with SQL 1 (CTEC 127)
  • PHP with SQL 2 (CTEC 227)
  • Business Web Practices (CTEC 165)
  • API & Advanced Integration (CTEC 228)

In that time I have had the pleasure of working with 700+ students, received the 2013 Exceptional Faculty Award and have made many new friends and colleagues. I am also participating in several college councils and industry advisory boards. Add to the list three “30 Clicks” presentations at the Cannell Library.

My “encore career” continues to bring much joy and happines to my life.

Software migrations are like a divorce

Moving to another enterprise software stack is like a divorce:

  • it costs a lot of money
  • It never goes as planned
  • There will be a lot of yelling and name calling
  • It’s an emotional rollercoaster
  • Having to move out into a new “stack” is scary
  • Once it’s completed you feel great

And if you decide not to “divorce” you:

  • You will be miserable
  • There will be a lot of yelling and name calling
  • You won’t get to try out new things
  • Your users will continue to be miserable
  • You only live once