You may have noticed changes in the Canvas style on the FSCJ Online Advisory Committee or in CeL courses already. These changes have been implemented to accommodate feedback from the user community. You can also view the new look for Canvas courses by browsing the Course Shells. The course shell is automatically created ninety days prior to the start of the course. The shell includes the course materials and other information that students need for their courses.
Student Organizations are a tool for collaboration
Student Organizations are virtual spaces for groups to share resources and collaborate. They allow students, faculty, and staff to hold virtual meetings and collaborate. Student Organizations can publish information across multiple channels, including the university website. To create an Organization, simply click “+People” and start adding members. Once members have joined, they can access the organization’s resources and collaborate with one another in the Organization.
To collaborate, members can add each other’s names to a document by signing in to OneDrive. They can then download and view the document. This collaborative document is stored in the student’s OneDrive. If other members of the group wish to view the document, they can send an e-mail invitation to that person. Canvas has many collaboration tools. Here are some useful resources.
Collaborations
Collaborations: Collaborations let students create, edit, and save documents simultaneously. Students can access the document at the same time and collaborate on it synchronously. They can collaborate in groups, either pre-defined or custom. Collaborations are a great tool for group projects, and are FERPA-compliant. With this tool, groups can collaborate synchronously and share their work with others.
Blackboard Collaborate: This web conferencing tool was launched this fall by Information Technology Services. All FSCJ faculty and staff members now have access to it. Additional features are available in the future. In the meantime, check out the Help articles on Blackboard. And remember to check back often for new features. If you’re having trouble navigating the software, you’re not alone! We’re happy to help!
Canvas Conversations Inbox allows you to target specific people or groups to receive your message
Using the Conversations feature in Canvas will allow you to send messages to individual students, the entire course, or groups. The system also lets you filter your mailbox by course, section, or sender to view only messages from that group or person. After you’ve filtered the message list, simply reply to it with your message and a link to the conversation. Then, you can respond to the student’s message.
Messages sent to Canvas Conversations Inbox are delivered directly to the recipient’s email. If you’ve set up the email address in your Canvas account, you can send messages to specific people or groups. You can also use the “Message Students Who…” feature to target particular groups of people with messages. While sending messages to a group of people is a good idea, it’s best to send messages to specific individuals or groups if they’ll be most responsive to your message.
Message design is easy to manage in Canvas. There are four main tabs for designing messages. First, there’s the canvas. Here you can type your message and use the properties panel to customize it. This panel offers formatting and image-formatting options for different content types. The template tab allows you to customize the look of the message. It also lists the different templates that you can use for your messages.
Canvas course shells are automatically created 90 days prior to course start date
The shell includes all students, including those who have not logged in. In the past, Blackboard courses had shells that excluded inactive students. Now, a course shell for a Canvas course includes every student, including those who have not logged in. This means that you will not have to worry about cleaning up the course after final exams.
You can modify the term date only by clicking the Default Term button in the Participation drop-down menu. After clicking the Default Term option, choose a course or term to edit the participation dates. Once you’ve made the changes, you can see which courses have the same start date as the current one. You can also adjust the dates on which students can access your course.
You can manually create a role called Grader if you don’t have any teaching assistants. Designers have limited administrative privileges, but can create discussions and quizzes.
You can also import grades from Canvas into Howdy. If you have multiple sections for a Canvas course, you can import the grades from the Canvas gradebook into Howdy. You must also enter ALL grades in Canvas, as Howdy will assume any missing grade will be a zero. This can lower the grade for a student. If you are using Canvas in conjunction with Howdy, you should check your course setup carefully.
Canvas Commons is a repository for course materials
In a Canvas course, students can share course materials created by them or by others through Canvas Commons. These materials must be created by the user and either adapted from a publicly available resource or have explicit permission to be shared. However, materials may not be copied or shared if they are copyrighted. To be eligible for sharing, the creator must be the sole copyright owner. The user must not post images, photocopies of journal articles, or book pages.
If an instructor uses Canvas Commons in their course, students can post their own course materials, or add resources from other institutions. Canvas Commons also has a guide for searching for these resources. Searching for specific resources can provide useful information, such as individual modules or assignments. If you’re teaching a new course, you may want to use the Commons as a repository for existing course materials. If so, you’ll want to make sure you’ve updated your license before you upload your course materials to Canvas Commons.
Commons allows educators to import, share, and find learning objects. Commons allows educators to create and share courses based on existing content and materials shared by other users. If you’re a USask instructor, you’ll find a plethora of useful resources in the Commons. Commons also hosts institution-wide documents, such as course templates. Further, the Commons’ search capabilities allow instructors to refine their results by topic, grade level, and other criteria.
Eding Words
In addition to Canvas Commons, instructors can post learning objects created outside the university, including quizzes, presentations, documents, and images. These materials can be shared between IU colleagues and the wider Canvas community. However, instructors must remember that their content is public, so that anyone can access it. As long as the creator of the resource has permission to share it, students can make use of Commons. However, the user can restrict their own content on Commons, such as IU-wide and private course materials.
