Canvas Tips
Canvas Tips
A few reminders about Announcements in Canvas:
Be sure you have included Announcements in the navigation (Settings > Navigation). When setting the navigation, Home, Modules, Announcements, and Pages should be visible. You may include other items that are used in your course. Be sure to Save at the bottom of the navigation if changes are made.
When parents become observers, they can see all announcements in the course. Even if they joined after the course started, they can still see all of the announcements that were created prior to joining the course.
If you email information to parents, you can copy and paste the information from an email to an announcement in Canvas.
Have you heard a teacher in your building talking about Canvas and saying they “found it in the Commons”? Have you shared information from your course to the Commons? Have you imported information from the Commons? Perhaps you haven’t heard of the Commons in Canvas.
The Canvas Commons is a learning object repository where educators can find and import resources as well as share resources with others. If you are importing resources from the Commons, please remember you still need to follow copyright guidelines.
To share information from your course to the Commons, only share it with the staff in our district and not the public Commons. To do this, open a course in Canvas and go to Settings. On the right you will see the option to Share to Commons. The image displays the option. Choose All of Ankeny Community School District. Complete the rest of the page and click Share.
Instead of sharing information in the Commons, consider creating a PLC Sandbox course where all members of your PLC are teachers of the course. All teachers in the course can create modules and assignments and use the Copy to Canvas feature to copy items to another course. Instructions on how to use these features are in the Canvas 201 course. If you have questions, please see your building tech integrationist.
First, please remember, do NOT add students to your course. If you have a student added or removed from your course, the information will sync daily with Infinite Campus and your course will be updated.
A teacher can add another teacher to his/her course. To do this, follow these steps:
Open the course you wish to add the teacher to
In the navigation, click on People
Click on the maroon +People button
Key in the teacher’s name using their Outlook email
Search for the teacher name
Decide what role you want the teacher to have (Teacher, Observer, etc.)
Click Next
Click Add User
Please note at this time you can only add teachers to a course and not associates.
When students see their courses in their dashboard, they should be able to recognize what the course is by a quick glance. Instead of adding an animation or image from Unsplash, consider creating an image using Google Slides.
Open Google Slides
Add a theme or a background color
Choose a slide layout with the best background option
If a textbox is on that layout, use it to type the name of your course
If a textbox is not on that layout, go to Insert > Textbox.
Resize the text as large as you can to fit the space
Go to File > Download > jpg current slide
Open Canvas > open a course > Settings > Course Details > Choose Image. Choose the image that was downloaded in Step 6.
After adding the image, scroll down and select Update Course Details.
An example of a course card image that is easy to read and was created using Google Slides is Canvas 201.
The image size for a Canvas course card is 262×146 pixels. This is very similar to the default size for a slide so it is not necessary to change the page setup. Here is additional information on adding an image to a course card.
While working in Canvas, you may want to separate the information within a module. This can be done by adding a Text Header to a module. To add a text header, follow these instructions:
Click on the + sign after the module name (note the red circle on the example)
Click the drop down arrow and select Text Header
Type the text you want to add in the header field
Select the type of indentation (optional)
Click Add Item
The example above is from the first module of the Canvas 201 course. The black oval shows the text header example which is Canvas Checklist. Note the text header has a blue diamond before and after the text. Using emojis in Canvas was the Canvas tip on October 6 and is also in the Canvas Information module of Canvas 201 if you want more information about it.
Here is more information about Adding a Text Header as a module item.
The Assign box is one of the last items to complete when creating an assignment in Canvas. Double check that you know what each box means:
Assign to: by default you will assign to everyone.
To assign to specific students, click on the X after Everyone. Search the name(s) of the students you wish to assign the assignment to.
Begin typing the first part of the name to find the name you want to select.
You can only select one name at a time.
Due: Decide the date the assignment is due. Use the calendar feature after the box to easily select a date. The assignment will appear in the calendar.
Students can check their Notifications settings to receive reminders.
Available from: Select a day and time (optional) for the assignment to appear for a student in Canvas.
Until: the date for an assignment is due
The assignment will no longer be available (disappear) in Canvas for a student after the date selected.
Recommendation: do NOT include a date in the Until box to avoid needing to re-assign/open assignments.
Here is more information on the difference between assignment due dates and availability dates.
Canvas provides built in supports for students that are Emergent Bilinguals (ELs), Modern Language Students, and students that need accommodations to have selections read aloud. At the top of a page, you will notice the Immersive Reader button. Click on that button to activate Immersive Reader on a page. At this time, Immersive Reader only works on pages in Canvas. Here is a short video on using Using Immersive Reader with Canvas.
There is also an Immersive Reader chrome extension. This extension works the same as Immersive Reader in Canvas and can be used on any webpages. It is important to use this extension for students that would benefit from it so we are consistent for our students. Here is a slideshow on Adding and Using Immersive Reader in Google Chrome created by Alexa Long. Notice Slide 6. If a teacher has information on a Google doc, the doc can be published to the web so the chrome extension will work with it.
As you add a title to a page, assignment, or discussion, consider beginning or ending the title with an emoji. For some students, it may be easier to locate an item in Canvas by looking for an emoji. For example, if an assignment always has a pencil emoji ✏️ before the title, it may be easier for students to find. You could also use shapes 🔵 or 🔶 or a checkmark ✅. Check out the Emoji Keyboard. Notice the categories you can choose from or search for a specific emoji. Consider using the same emojis as a PLC or a team or possibly even a building so the students will have consistency in what they are searching for.
When you look at your courses in your Canvas dashboard, notice the name of the course is the same as how the course is listed in Infinite Campus. Teachers may want to “nickname” a course to easily identify it. The nicknames of a course can only be seen by the teacher.
To nickname a course, go to the Global Navigation > Dashboard.
Click on the three dots in the upper right corner of a course card.
Type a new name in the Name section to easily identify a course.
Click Apply.
Note: Students can follow the same instructions to nickname the courses in their dashboard.
You can also:
Change the background color by choosing a color.
Change the placement of the course on the Dashboard by clicking the Move tab.
Besides creating a button, there may be other times when using Canvas that you want to link an image to a site. Examples of this is linking an image of Google Classroom to the class or linking an image of the homepage of a Google site you created to the published site.
To link an image in Canvas, follow these steps:
Open the site you want to create a button/image of In the task bar, click on the Search button. Type snip. The snipping tool should be the top option. Click on it to open. In the snipping tool dialog box, click New. Notice your screen will dim. This means it is ready to use. Your cursor should be a +. Click and drag to select an area. File > Save as and save the image on your desktop. Change the file name so it is easy to locate. Open the page in Canvas you want to add the image and link. Click Edit. Go to Insert > Image > Upload Image. Locate the image on your desktop. The image should load in the Rich Content Editor box. Click on the image to select it. Go to Insert > Link > External Link. Paste the link to the site in the box. Click Done. Click Save.
Test the image to be sure it links to the correct site. Note: The site can also be linked to text.