Puzzel.org in Canvas
Add a Puzzel activity to a Canvas course, and each student's score comes back to that course's gradebook on its own. Your admin connects Puzzel.org to Canvas once; after that every teacher in the school can use it.
Canvas
Canvas registers Puzzel.org itself: your admin pastes one URL and answers a short wizard. Teachers then add activities from inside their own courses, and students play without a Puzzel.org account.
- The score, out of the points you chose
- Their best attempt, if they play again
- What each student answered
- Your results per activity and per student
Connect Canvas once
Canvas calls this dynamic registration: you give it one URL and it fetches everything it needs from Puzzel.org. No keys or secrets to exchange, nothing to download.
- Open Apps in your Canvas account In Global Navigation choose Admin and then the name of your account, then Apps. On the Manage tab, press Install a New App. Admin → your account → Apps → Manage → Install a New App
- Choose LTI 1.3 and Dynamic Registration Select LTI version 1.3, set Install Method to Dynamic Registration, paste the URL above and press Next. LTI version 1.3 → Install Method: Dynamic Registration
- Leave the permissions switched on These are what let Puzzel.org create the gradebook column for an activity a teacher adds and write scores into it. Switch them off and the app still installs, but no score will ever reach Canvas. Set Permissions
- Share students' names “User's name only” is enough. Scores arrive correctly on “None (Anonymized)” as well, but then teachers see anonymous players in their Puzzel.org results instead of names. Puzzel.org never asks Canvas for your class lists. User Data Shared With This App
- Choose where teachers find it Switch on the placements where teachers should find Puzzel.org: the one for picking content in an assignment, and the text editor button if you want it there too. Each placement has an information icon showing exactly where it appears in Canvas. Set Placements
- Review, install, and set who may use it Give it a nickname if you like, then press Install App. Puzzel.org appears on the Manage tab, and that is also where you choose whether it is available across the account or only in certain courses. Review and install → Manage
https://puzzel.org/lti/register This is the only thing you paste. It is not a page to open in a browser: it hands Canvas the configuration.
A Canvas account admin with the “LTI Registrations - Manage” permission, and a Puzzel.org account to sign in with partway through — make that account at puzzel.org before you start, rather than halfway through the wizard. Canvas Free-for-Teacher accounts cannot create the developer key this needs, so LTI 1.3 is not open to them — the simpler route at the bottom of this page is.
After you paste the URL, Canvas opens a Puzzel.org window inside the wizard — our screen, not one of Canvas's. It names the Canvas it is about to connect: sign in, press Connect, and Canvas carries on where it left off. Being signed in to Puzzel.org in another tab doesn't carry into that window, so email and password is the surest way in.
Any one — the school's own, or the teacher who asked you to do this. It is recorded only so we know who set the connection up. It never becomes a shared login and it owns nothing: teachers each sign in with their own account, later, in their own course.
Add an activity →Then the URL went into the older LTI 1.1 screen — External Apps, + App, By URL — which accepts an XML file and nothing else. The registration URL is not XML, so Canvas refuses it. Nothing is broken on either side; it is the wrong screen.
Use Apps → Manage → Install a New App instead, as above. If you did mean the simpler route without a gradebook, take the config URL from the bottom of this page.
Instructure documents this wizard screen by screen, with a picture of each one. The same steps, from their side.
Read the Canvas guide →Older installations register a tool by hand. These are the three URLs it will ask for. Both the redirect URI and the target link URI are the launch URL, and the public keys are fetched from the JWKS URL — there is no secret to paste anywhere.
https://puzzel.org/lti/login https://puzzel.org/lti/launch https://puzzel.org/api/lti/jwks Add an activity to your course
Once your admin has connected Canvas, Puzzel.org is there in every course. You sign in once with your own Puzzel.org account, choose the activity and the points, and Canvas makes the gradebook column itself.
- Make it an assignment In your course go to Assignments and add one. Set Submission Type to External Tool and press Find. Assignments → + Assignment → Submission Type: External Tool → Find
- Choose Puzzel.org from the list Canvas opens a Puzzel.org window inside the assignment. It is Puzzel's own window rather than a Canvas screen, which is why it asks who you are. Find → Puzzel.org
- Sign in with your own account The first time only, and this is where the two sign-ins part company: the account here is yours, not the one your admin used to connect Canvas. Every teacher signs in as themselves and sees their own activities. No account yet? The window has a sign-up link — make one in the tab it opens, then come back and log in.
- Pick your activity and the points Choose one of your activities and confirm. Whatever you put in Points is what it is worth, and the gradebook column is made when you save the assignment.
- Students open it in Canvas They press the assignment and play straight away: no Puzzel.org account to make, no name to type, no code. The score lands in the gradebook as soon as they finish, and if they play again their best attempt counts.
Your own run is never graded: open the activity as the teacher and you play it the same way, but nothing is written to the gradebook. Any activity with a score per student works; team and room play do not. Sending scores is part of a paid plan on the account that owns the activity — without one, activities still work in Canvas, just ungraded.
The simpler route, one course at a time
Canvas lets a teacher add an external app to a single course without asking IT. Puzzel.org then sits in that course's text editor: press it, pick one of your activities, and it is placed in the page for your students. This is the older LTI 1.1 way, and it has no gradebook.
https://puzzel.org/lti.xml Name it Puzzel.org, leave Consumer Key and Shared Secret empty, and paste the config URL. This is the one screen where an XML config URL is the right answer.
Everything you add this way keeps working after your admin connects the school, and what you add from then on sends its scores too.
- Activities play inside the course page
- Results stay in Puzzel.org, under your own account
- No gradebook column, no scores in Canvas
- Canvas does not tell Puzzel.org who the student is
What student data does Puzzel.org receive and keep for grades?
Read the privacy policy →- Only what's needed comes in
The student's ID in Google Classroom or your school's system — with a name and email address only if it shares them. Never class lists, other students or other coursework.
- Only the score goes out
Calculated on our servers from the answers given, and sent to that one student's gradebook entry. Nothing else.
- Removed when you stop
A student's record goes when the teacher stops syncing the activity or deletes it. Scores already sent stay in the school's gradebook.
- The school stays in charge
Your school decides what happens with its students' data; Puzzel.org processes it only on the school's behalf.
Tell us which step and what Canvas said, and we'll work it out with you — screenshots welcome.