Canvas: Basics - Overview

Login to Canvas

1. https://iliff.instructure.com
2. same username and password used for my.iliff
3. once logged in, choose a course from the course menu at the top of the screen by hovering over the Courses menu and then selecting a course.

Make An Announcement

Announcements are the most effective way to communicate with your whole class (similar to the News Forum in Moodle). When you post an announcement, it will notify all users in the course by email or by whatever notification preferences they have set in Canvas.

• How do I post an announcement?
• TIP: Always identify yourself in announcements in case students receive announcements via a channel that doesn't identify you clearly (e.g. text message).
• Your course must be published before announcements will be delivered to students
• Students can respond to your announcement through canvas of simply by replying to the email sent by Canvas

Participate in Discussions

Discussions will continue to be a large part of what we do in Canvas. A big difference between Canvas and Moodle is that there are many ways to participate in discussions in Canvas, including via mobile apps and via email. When in your canvas course site, you can get to discussions using the syllabus page in your course which lists and links to all assignments in date order, using the modules page if you have setup modules for your course, or using the assignment or discussion link in the left hand navigation bar of the course. Once you get to the discussion,

1. click in the area that says Reply and the editor will appear.
2. compose your reply or post using any of the multi-media functions available or using just text
3. click the Post Response button

How do I record an audio/video reply to a discussion?

If you are receiving discussion posts in your email, you can simply reply to the email to participate in the discussion. To automatically receive discussion posts by email, be sure to Subscribe to each discussion of interest to you.

Upload Files

The course files area of canvas is accessible by students, so any files you upload to the course will be available to students unless you lock the file in Canvas. Typically, you will upload files to the course and then link to these files in an assignment or page to help guide students

• How do I upload files to my course?
• How do I lock files?
• TIP: if you upload files to the course and you want students to take note, post an announcement about the file uploads and even easily link to the course files in your announcement.

Create an Assignment

Assignments drive must of our course design in Canvas because assignments allow us to give dates to activities in the course. We predominantly use 3 types of assignments

• How Do I Create a Discussion Assignment? - Discussion assignments are online conversation assignments that have a due date so that canvas will notify students in their calendar and to-do list that they need to participate in the discussion. Typically, discussion assignments involve some prompts related to course materials and then students are asked to engage each other asynchronously in dialog. The prompts for the discussion can include links to readings, embedded audio and video, links to other resources, images, etc. Instructors need not respond to or even read every single post, but should be active participants in the discussion.
• How Do I Create an Online Submission Assignment? - Online submission assignments allow students to submit work for just the instructor to see and assess. Students will typically submit a PDF or DOC file and the instructional team will be able to comment on this document and give it a grade right in the Canvas grader without needing to download anything and the feedback will be delivered directly to the student. We recommend enabling Turnitin Checking (our integrated plagiarism checking tool) for online submission assignments to encourage student learning about proper use of sources.
• How Do I Create a Placeholder Assignment? - We use the Not-Graded assignment type in Canvas to remind students of important due dates. For example, often discussion assignments will have more than one due date, an initial date for beginning interactions and then a follow-up date for extended engagement. A placeholder assignment in Canvas can make sure the second due date gets onto the course schedule and the student to-do lists and can link back to the original discussion container.

View Student Activity in a Course

Canvas has some course overview analytics to give you a sense of what is happening in the course. There are also more detailed reports for student activity if you want to see who has done what in your course.

• How do I see course analytics?
• How do I get a report of activity for a particular student?

Again, feel free to contact us at [e-mail] if you have any additional questions or want to setup a time to meet.