Is it possible to annotate and markup a course document (not assignment) for all students to see?

[tcadw]

One of my main practices as a teacher is to prepare questions for in-class discussion on .pdf files, and in class, I will write on those files (using my iPad and stylus) and upload pictures of student work so that students have a record of our class discussion. Currently, I am using online platforms like ConceptBoard or, more recently, Drawboard PDF, but the free versions of these are limited, and it requires students to log into yet another platform.

I'd like to be able to mark up these PDF documents from within canvas, similar to how we can mark up student assignment, in such a way that all students can see the markup and annotations from within Canvas. Currently, it looks like I can draw on a course document in the iPad app, but that markup seems to only exist on my iPad, and no one else can see the markup (even my own account, logged into my desktop, cannot see the markup on the file. Is there any way to use this functionality in such a way that all users can see the markup on course documents? Thanks!

[greydon]

Hello @tcadw 

The only thing that comes to mind is making an assignment, going to student view and submitting the pdf. Then you leave student view and go to speedgrader. Your test student submission should be here and you should be able to use the annotation tools to mark it. Hopefully this helps. 

[tcadw]

Thanks for suggesting this, but as far as I can tell, the last step is missing: there is no way (that I can see) to share the marked up annotation as a course document to all the students. Even so, this is a pretty complicated solution, it would be great if Canvas could implement something like this directly into the course documents. Ah well, in the meantime, I'll keep using external tools.

[ProfessorBeyrer]

One option to share the annotated document is to download it from the SpeedGrader and then share it with your students. There is a button to download the annotated PDF:

Download annotated PDF

[tcadw]

Thanks, but this isn't exactly what I'm looking for: I want this to be a "live" document that I can edit in class, with the students, over the course of several class meetings. Students should be able to access the document as it evolves, not just at the "end" of the annotations process. Thanks anyways!