Use Harmonize’s Milestones feature to encourage more frequent and thoughtful participation.
Milestones (AKA multiple due dates) help students remember deadlines and contribute to discussions now instead of at the last minute. Use them to set clear expectations, remind students of approaching due dates, and pull them back into the conversation.
With Milestones, students thoughtfully engage with one another throughout the length of the course — not minutes before each deadline — improving their understanding of course material and peer relationships. With the ability to post text, video, or audio responses, students feel empowered to participate in a way they feel most comfortable.
More discussion posts doesn’t mean more work for your instructors. Milestones streamline the grading process by enabling instructors to easily auto-grade student participation so they can focus on providing formative feedback and teaching.
With Milestones, students can easily view and track their progress within each assignment or in a Harmonize To Do list that shows milestones across all courses. For Canvas users, milestones are also visible in students’ calendars in Canvas.
“Using Milestones to guide our online students through collaborative learning activities is keeping our students engaged and on track, while simultaneously working to create a stronger sense of classroom community. We see our students becoming more responsive to each other, which is creating connection.”
Grid view
Gauge student engagement at a glance. The Harmonize layout makes it easy to see which conversations have the most engagement and what students are saying.
Rich multimedia
Why should students only be able to post text? Harmonize supports video, images, audio, and embedded URLs, so students can finally express themselves.
Q&A
Let students answer each others’ questions. Leave Q&A boards up all term to avoid repeated questions and help students share information in one place.
Annotations
Adding annotations to content promotes peer-to-peer learning, richer instructor feedback, and deeper engagement with course material.
Tagging
Pull students into the conversation by tagging them directly. Students and instructors have the ability to tag anybody in the class.
Notifications
Keep students on task and help them meet deadlines with notifications. Add a custom notification for the whole class or individual students.
Chat
Using Harmonize Chat, instructors and students can communicate in real time. It’s easy for students to see which classmates are online and begin a new chat.
Polls
Use polls to gauge understanding, assess students, or review content. You can even use a poll to take attendance. Run a poll on its own or add it to any discussion.
Reactions
Students can use emojis to respond to their classmates. Reactions lower the barrier to responding to peers and help more students contribute.
You can use Harmonize with any major LMS. Harmonize feels so familiar to instructors and students that there’s virtually no learning curve.
It’s simple to get started — Harmonize plugs right in!
