Harmonize is a discussion board platform that integrates into Canvas. It can be used to replace graded Discussions, as well as provide both students and instructors with a multimedia Discussion platform responsive to their current needs.

For many instructors, the very BEST reason to switch to Harmonize is that it supports "milestones" within a Discussion thread. What does this mean? You can now determine how many responses each student needs to have, in addition to their initial post, and grade accordingly. You can set multiple dates and deadlines within your discussion threads, so that students have to have their initial post by one date and subsequent replies posted by following dates and times, all within the context of a single thread. 

But wait...there's MORE! When creating a Harmonize assignment, you can either go with a normal Discussion thread, or you can set up polls to query students, or you can upload PDFs that can be annotated by multiple students at once.

Harmonize is still in the pilot phase within UM-System Canvas, but the more instructors who use it and provide feedback increase the odds that it will become a permanent feature of Canvas in the future.

Useful Links

Harmonize Support (Instructors) -- Your basic "how-to" guides for using Harmonize from the instructor side.

Harmonize Support (Students) -- This is where students should go to learn how to use Harmonize.

Harmonize Virtual Training Series -- Harmonize offers a number of online webinars to help you get started using Harmonize in your course.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)