Ed Discussion provides a platform for students and instructors to interact through threaded discussions. Students can answer one another’s questions, work on and run code together, embed videos, annotate images, and share documents. Instructors can endorse student responses and add their own feedback.
Ed Discussion’s features foster community and peer learning. Additionally, students may use Ed Discussion to ask questions about the course, which can reduce individual emails to instructors and TAs. Ed Discussion is highly customizable, with categories for certain questions or threads and an easy-to-use search and filter tool.
This page is intended for instructors. Students should review Ed Discussion for Students.
Accessing Ed Discussion
If enabled, Ed Discussion can be accessed by you and your students from the course menu in your Canvas site (see instructions below for adding Ed Discussion to Canvas).
You can also log in to Ed Discussion with the same Penn email address you use for Canvas. This is how your students will access Ed Discussion if your course is not in Canvas.
Adding Ed Discussion to Canvas
- Log in to Canvas.
- Click Courses and choose a course.
- Once in the course, enable Ed Discussion in the course settings.
Students can now access Ed Discussion through the course navigation menu in Canvas.
We recommend waiting to activate your Ed Discussion course until after your Canvas site is published. By clicking Activate in your Ed Discussion course, students will receive a notification that the course is live, but they will not be able to access it until your Canvas course site has been published.
Installing the mobile app
- Navigate to the Ed Discussion mobile page.
- When prompted, log in with the same Penn email you use for Canvas.
- Follow the directions for your device (IOS or Android) to add the mobile app.
- Enable Push Notifications in your settings.
Using Ed Discussion
Getting started
After logging in, we recommend the following resources to help set up your course:
Tips and tricks
Ed Discussion has many helpful features to make communication more efficient. Log in to access the help guides linked below on specific features.
We recommend clicking the Sync with LMS button (located in Ed Discussion Settings) frequently, especially during the Add/Drop period. This ensures that all enrolled students can access your Ed Discussion course.
- Moderation Tools can help you to manage discussions.
- Pin certain threads to draw attention to important information.
- Schedule Posts to be sent to students at a future time.
- Edit equations in the discussion.
- Create short polls in the content editor by clicking the lightning bolt button in the left side of the toolbar.
Chat
Instructors have the option to enable the Chat tool within their Ed Discussion courses. This allows instructors to:
- Initiate and engage in private communications/chats with students.
- Set up public and private chat channels.
- Allow students to send each other direct messages.
Analytics
As an instructor, you can view and download analytics depicting participation statistics, such as views, threads, and answers, for a certain point in time. Access your Course Analytics by clicking the bar graph icon in the top left toolbar.
You can also view details on top contributors in the class. These stats can then be downloaded and viewed in .csv format for further drill-down capabilities, such as user email addresses, roles, and specific activity metrics. The image below shows how these metrics appear from your Analytics tab:
Additional Resources
Getting Help
For more detailed guides, please log in to Ed Discussion, select your region, and then go to Help with Using Ed Discussion. If you are already logged into your Ed Discussion Dashboard, click on the person icon found in the upper right corner of the screen and click Help.
The Canvas Support team can also assist you with Ed Discussion. Contact us at canvas@pobox.upenn.edu.