Welcome to the Technology Design Team Weekly Lessons Learned! This is a recurring feature on Friday afternoons where the Technology Design Team will share top of mind resources and learning. Each week, we will post a few key things we hope you may find useful. We look forward to sharing our learning with you. We look forward to sharing our learning with you.
Some of the content may be specific to the realities of Austin ISD though, we hope, much will be useful to viewers worldwide. The Weekly Lessons Learned Archive contains a list of topics from and links to previous updates.
This week’s update has a heavy focus on quizzes in BLEND/Canvas as well as a couple Austin ISD specific items

How can I tell classic from new quizzes?
- Classic and New quizzes have slightly different icons
- Classic quizzes have a white rocket icon
- New quizzes have a black rocket icon

I want to give a pre/post assessment in BLEND (SLO, progress monitoring, etc), can I copy a quiz?
- In BLEND, a “New Quiz” can be duplicated by navigating to “Assignments”, clicking the three dots on the right of the quiz, and selecting “Duplicate”. Classic quizzes can be converted to new quizzes.
- Classic quizzes cannot be duplicated, but there is the ability to quickly pull in questions from prior quizzes using the “Find Questions” option when building a quiz. The directions from the original can then be copied and pasted into the new version to complete the process.
What quiz item types are useful for creating SLO-type assessments?
- The Stimulus item type in new quizzes allows for passages, diagrams, table, etc. with multiple attached questions.
What additional question types are a available in new quizzes?
- New quizzes offers several new question types. We will highlight three now.
- Categorization questions require students to place answers in the correct categories while ignoring all distractors.
- Hot Spot questions allow teachers to upload images and have their students identify a specific area in that image.
- Fill in the Blank questions can have multiple blank spaces and may include various answer types.
What options can I set in a quiz?
- This Canvas guide highlights quiz options.
- This video demonstrates quiz creation and options in new quizzes.
How do I add accommodations for a student in New Quizzes?
- Teachers can adjust time for quiz attempts in two ways.
- Adding an accommodation applies to all quizzes in a course.
- Moderating a quiz applies the setting to that single quiz instance.
How can I change my quiz engine from old to new quizzes and back?
- When a quiz engine, class or new, is selected, users have the option of making the setting the default for future quizzes. If the option has been set, it is possible to reset the quiz engine from the quiz menu.
Help! I need a hard copy of a BLEND/Canvas quiz or answer key.
- How do I print a quiz in New Quizzes?
- If your quiz is set to display one question at a time, turn that feature off before printing. You can’t print a blank quiz with the one question at a time setting enabled.

I noticed Learning Ally is in my portal. How can I get my students access?
- The Austin ISD Dyslexia Department and Assistive Technology Department are excited to announce that on Wednesday, March 23, 2022, Learning Ally Audiobooks will be integrated with the AISD portal with single sign-on. Eligible students will now have easy access to their Learning Ally account through the Learning Ally tile in the portal. An IEP or 504 is not required to be eligible. Please review the following guidance document and distribute it to campus teachers, including assistant principals, counselors, classroom and special education teachers, related service providers, librarians, instructional coaches, campus innovation connectors, and dyslexia interventionists to ensure seamless integration.
- The following family flier (English, Spanish) can be shared with families of children who are eligible to use this resource.
Minecraft: Education Edition Build Challenge: Build A Better City: Austin
- Information on the Minecraft Build Challenge is available on the Austin ISD website and will provide support throughout the challenge event. Student teams will organize to research and develop solutions on the prompt, “How can we make Austin streets more people-friendly while moving towards Net-zero goals in Austin?” Students are expected to work outside of classroom instructional time during the April 11th – May 13th event.
Where can I learn more about SchoolCity?
- There is a BLEND course (https://bit.ly/SchoolCityBLENDCourse) with all things SchoolCity and learning resources and experiences.
Save the date! June 7th Blended Learning Summit.

The Technology Design Team would love to hear from you!
Please reach out to your Technology Design Specialist if you would like a thought partner or support on your blended learning implementation.
If you have a technical support issue (device repair or setup, access to systems, etc), please create a ServiceNow ticket to have a technician address your concern.
