[SpeedGrader] Allow students to annotate using touchscreens (Chromebook)

[MattHanes]

I love the new student annotation feature, however the students are only able to annotate using the keyboard and mouse/touchpad. We would love for students to be able to use their finger to draw on the screen for annotations. For use cases like making quick sketches or graphs. Right now, using your finger will just make the page scroll up and down instead of allowing for use of the annotation tools.

[cmbustos]

Yes, please.  This would be a huge help.

[ckasten]

This is a great idea! I would love to see this happen. 

[MollyBrubaker]

Yes! Our Kindergarten - 2nd grade teachers desperately need this feature! 

[apratt]

We really need this in our district.  We were very disappointed when the new annotation rolled out and did not support touchscreens.  Touchscreen annotation is particularly important for our K-2 teachers and students.   This feature is one reason that other tools, such as Seesaw, remain more popular than Canvas with our early elementary teachers.

[ptart]

I wish I could share a picture of the palettes and palettes of Chromebooks that have been handed out in our K-12 district. With over 164,000 students, and moving to 1-1 with Chromebooks, the Annotations for Assignments is steadily letting the air out of our Canvas balloon. Teachers are looking to multiple 3rd party tools that aren't approved in our district and coming up empty, as am I as the Canvas Admin. It's always hard to prioritize, but for this, I'd strike while the iron is hot!

[AlainaForesman]

I absolutely agree that this would be a great feature for them to add to the system. Annotating from the trackpad is not something that is easy for students to do at any age. Please please please make this an option. Districts would not need a 3rd party app to then do this! 

[ericmueller]

I guess I'm jumping into this later than the rest but we are having the same issue in our district.

[alallen]

My students have Windows touch-screen laptops. I was so excited about the possibilities that arose when the pdf annotation assignment submission option was released this year. I really wanted students to be able to draw models for math and science or annotate maps in social studies.

However, I became much less excited when I found that the annotation tool doesn't support passive stylus or finger drawing input. The drawing must be done with a mouse or with their laptop trackpads. This is really difficult for elementary students.

I'm wondering if there is a way -- maybe with a button or something -- that the drawing input could be enabled or activated using the touchscreen rather than just a connected input device. Without that capability, the pdf annotation feature is not terribly helpful. Other apps like Kami and Nearpod have this capability.