Good morning,
During this semester, a new link popped up on folks’ courses, a link to something called “Lucid.”
It’s typically near the bottom of the list, near Settings.
Maybe you hid it from the course navigation and went about your day, or maybe you left it—just in case.
Today, let’s learn a bit more about this tool and how it can be used by both you and your students.
Lucid is a mapping and visualization tool. It can create flowcharts and graphic organizers, among other things. When Lucid partnered with Instructure this year, they offered licenses and deep-linked integration to all Canvas users. This means that both you and your students can use Lucid for free!
When you click the Lucid link on your course navigation, you’ll first need to create your new account. From there, any time you click the link, you’ll be logged in with your Microsoft login. They also provide training materials on this page, as well as a mini course on best practices for using Lucid in the classroom.
Lucid provides several templates, each organized by task. There are mind maps, organizational charts, roadmaps, and more. What’s more, the templates provide some initial help with setting things up. For example, here is the flowchart template:
Notice how the template clearly explains the shape language of the flowchart. Ovals are beginnings and endings (“terminators”), while diamonds are decisions.
Beyond these templates, you can create your own visualizations with Lucid’s shape and icon libraries. You can add conditional formatting, where the chart dynamically changes based on rules.
You can even use AI to describe a chart you’d like to create:
There are many more things that can be done through Lucid that I haven’t yet explored! For example, you can create activities that are interactive and shared with a team, such as this prioritization activity:
There’s also an “Education” category, which includes activities that allow for polling, reflection, and more:
If any of this has piqued your interest, feel free to check out the linked resources and experiment with using the tool. You can also look at other examples of instructors using Lucid on their mini-lessons page.
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