Canvas 101

New to Canvas? Need help learning the ropes? This session will walk you through the ends and outs of creating and building in Canvas. Before you know it you will be building courses like a pro! At the completion of this session, you should have the beginnings of a terrific course!

Work through the resources below to complete all course steps. With each section covered take time to begin building a course in Canvas for you to work out of.

You can also work through a Canvas Course step by step to get familiar with Canvas by clicking this link: Growing with Canvas, created by Instructure.

Logging into Canvas

We recommend using Google Chrome for Canvas, but any browser should work.
- - - Canvas plays nicer with Chrome.
Go to https://clover.instructure.com.
- - - Be sure you have clover in the URL. Common mistake.
Username: last.first
- - - Student Username: lastfirstm
Password: District Issued Password
Click for a one pager: Logging Into Canvas How To

Navigating Canvas and Creating a Course

There is Account Navigation (specific to you) and Course Navigation.
Customize your Dashboard by "favoriting" courses you want to see as soon as you log in.
Create New Courses from the Dashboard. You can make as many as you would like.
- - - We recommend you have a "Sandbox" course where you can play and explore Canvas. It's a safe place to build content with no fear of messing the course up since there are no students in the course.
Course Navigation is found when you click on a course. Later we will explore how to customize this navigation.
Click for a one pager: Navigating Canvas
Click for a one pager: Creating a Canvas Course
Watch video for more in depth information.

Course Settings

Pay attention to the few district norms we have in place. Please follow these norms for your PowerSchool generated courses.
Click for a one pager: Complete Settings Guide
Click for a one pager: Course Details
Click for a one pager: Renaming Course Sections
Click for a one pager: Customizing Course Navigation
Click for a one pager: Apps and Feature Options
Click for a one pager: Additional Settings
Click for a one pager: Importing Course Content

Creating a Home Page

Publish course from this page - very important! Students will not see the course till it is published.
You can also change the home page to something of your choosing. (Default is modules)
Highly Recommended: Have a home page that reflects a week’s worth of objectives and assignments. This will help parents and students navigate assigned work in the event they move to full eLeanring.
Click for One Pager: Setting Up Home Page
Click for one pager: Sample Home Page with Pages

Organizing Modules

Modules are great for organizing your online content. How you organize is up to you: unit, week, day, etc.
Anything can be added to modules: assignments, files, quizzes, external links, etc.
Stay consistent in how you organize to reduce any confusion for students/parents.
Always keep current modules you are working from at the top.
Don't forget to publish modules. Even if content inside the module is published, it will not be accessible to students if the module is not published.
You can also assign modules directly to a group of students. Great for personalizing instruction for kids.
Click for one pager: Organizing Modules in Canvas
Click for one pager: Modules - Assign To
Click for one pager: Module Requirements

Rich Content Editor (RCE)

All your text formatting tools.
RCE is the same across Canvas no matter what tool are using (assignemnts, quizzes, pages, etc).
Click for one pager: Canvas Rich Content Editor

Creating Pages

Think of pages as wiki doc or a word processing document that lives inside of Canvas verses being a file.
Edit and create on it just like you would a word processing document.
Great to set as a home page!
Click for one pager: Sample Home Page with Pages
Click for one pager: Organizing Pages in Canvas
Click for one pager: Pages - Assign To

Assignments

Provide details for each assignment so it is clear what you are are asking the students to do.
Add any files to the details that they would need to access.
Everything should be in the assignment or linked in the assignment, so that students to not have to click in multiple places to get what they need and submit.
Click for one pager: Canvas Assignments
Click for one pager: Sync SIS Catergories with Assignment Groups
- - Video: Sync SIS Categories
Click for one pager: Assignments Assign To

Discussions

Make a clear and specific topic for students to respond to.
Don't assume students know how to repsond and comment to one another on discussion posts.
- Model a proper response.
- Model a response to someone else's post.
Click for One Pager: Power of Discussions

New Quizzes

Classic Quizzes is going away and support for it is being dropped. We recommend you only build in New Quizzes.
In some of our schools, you can also use LockDown Browser with New Quizzes (see below).
Click for One Pager: New Quizzes
Click for One Pager: Migrating Classic Quizzes to New Quizzes
Click for One Pager: Migrate Question Banks

Speedgrader

Grade student work individually.
Grades will automatically post to the Canvas gradebook. From there, you can manually push to PowerSchool.
Teach students how to view comments.
Click for One Pager: Speedgrader

Gradebook

Lockdown Browser

Calendar

Announcements

Messages

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