Available for integrations with: Canvas LMS
As part of the Explain Everything integration with LMSs, Instructors can create in their Courses live whiteboarding sessions with voice chat. Students of the Course can join these sessions to participate in the lecture, and follow the Instructor’s actions.
Note: This feature is part of Explain Everything’s integration with Learning Management Systems. Learn how to integrate Explain Everything with your LMS.
Instructor
As an Instructor, you can start new sessions and create projects from scratch, start new sessions from the already existing Explain Everything projects, or reuse projects created in previous sessions.
Once you start a session, it will appear under Explain Everything in the Student’s Course Navigation Menu.
The session will be in progress allowing Students in your Course to join it until you stop it.
After stopping the session, your Students will no longer be able to join it. The project you created during the session will be saved in the Projects from recent Sessions section allowing you to reuse it.
Students cannot stop sessions nor start new sessions by themselves. Projects saved to recent sessions can only be viewed by them.
Only one session can be active at a time. If you’d like to start a new one, you will be asked to stop the one that’s in progress first.
Tip: During the session, you can control Student’s access to the project's rules, tools and features. You can also set up permissions for your Students to access the project they’re supposed to join.
Note: For best experience, we recommend up to 8 people working simultaneously during one session. This is important to maintain the session’s stability. The quality of the live session also depends on the quality of your internet connection. We are constantly improving the technical capacity of this feature, so you can count on us gradually reducing those limits.
Start a new session from a new project
- Open the Course you’d like to start a new session in.
- In the Course Navigation Menu, choose Explain Everything.
- Select Start new session.
- Select Create new project to create a new, blank project — the new session will appear in the Current session section.
- Select Join session to enter the session — you’ll be taken to Explain Everything Whiteboard.
Tip: Every new session you start is created with the same name — as Whiteboard. Rename your session right after starting it to avoid confusion with their names.
Start a new session from an already existing Explain Everything project
- Open the Course you’d like to start a new session in.
- In the Course Navigation Menu, choose Explain Everything.
- Select Start new session.
- Select Copy Existing Project to reuse the content of an already existing Explain Everything project.
- Search for the project — enter the project’s name or its CODE.
- Once found, choose Select on the project’s thumbnail — the new session will appear in the Current session section.
- Select Join session to enter the session — you’ll be taken to Explain Everything Whiteboard.
Tip: Want to edit the project before starting a session? Select Edit on the project’s thumbnail after finding one — you’ll be taken to Explain Everything so you can make any necessary changes. When you’re done, go back to Canvas LMS and search for the project you’ve just edited. Then, follow the instructions above to finish creating the session.
Tip: Every new session you start is created with the same name — as Whiteboard. Rename your session right after starting it to avoid confusion with their names.
Reuse a recent session’s project
When you stop the session, the project you created will be added to the list of recently created projects. You can start a new session using one of these projects instead of creating a project from scratch. This way, you can continue interrupted lessons or refer to previous topics.
- Open the Course you’d like to reuse a recent session’s project in.
- In the Course Navigation Menu, choose Explain Everything.
- In the Recent sessions section, select the project you’d like to reuse — it will appear in the Current session section so your Students can join it.
Stop the session
After starting a session, you can stop it by selecting the Stop Session button in the Current session section. The project created during the session will appear in the Projects from recent Sessions section allowing you to reuse it.
Student
As a Student, you can join sessions started by the Instructor of your Course and view projects created in recent sessions. Once the Instructor of your Course starts a session, it will appear under Explain Everything in your Course Navigation Menu. You can join the session as long as it’s in progress — you will see it in the Current session section of a given Course.
Join the session
To join the session started by the Instructor of your Course, follow these few easy steps:
- Open the Course you’d like to join the session in.
- In the Course Navigation Menu, choose Explain Everything.
- In the Current session section, select the Join session button — you’ll be taken to the Explain Everything Whiteboard and be able to join the project created by the Instructor of your Course.
View recent sessions’ projects
As a Student, you can view projects created during past sessions. They will appear in the Projects from recent Sessions section of the given Course once stopped by the Instructor.