• Canvas,  Educational Tools,  Teaching & Learning

    Canvas Update: New Method for Adding or Changing Due Dates 

    Reading Time: 3 minutes We’re all familiar with how to change the due dates or availability dates for an individual assignment, discussion, or quiz – you go into the settings, scroll down, and add or modify the dates. Now, if you follow that exact same method, you find a “Manage Assign To” link that slides out a panel where you can update all the information. While this change may seem confusing, it enables Canvas to modify how and where the “assign” feature can operate – and it can simplify the processes we use to work with these dates.   With this feature update, you can now update dates directly from the…

  • Canvas,  Educational Tools,  Teaching & Learning

    Canvas Update: Inbox Out of Office and Signature Settings 

    Reading Time: < 1 minute Canvas is rolling out new features and changes July 20, and we’ll be discussing two of them today – Canvas Inbox out of office and signature settings. While messages through the inbox are still rather bare-bones (the RCE is not used there, so messages are text-only – font styling cannot be changed and hyperlinks cannot be added), Canvas is now giving instructors some additional control over their inboxes.   Both the out of office and signature settings are easy to set up! In your Canvas inbox, click the gear icon at the top right to open the Inbox settings. You’ll instantly see your options for both…

  • Canvas,  Educational Tools,  Teaching & Learning

    Canvas Update: Discussions Enhancements 

    Reading Time: 4 minutes Last week, we talked about the updates Canvas is making to assignments. This week, we’re turning our focus to the discussions redesign in preparation for the changes to go live this weekend. These updates go a little deeper and have some added functionality. Let’s jump in and see what’s changed!   1. You can mention users in your posts!   Canvas has added the ability for you to mention specific people in your posts. Simply type the @ symbol, and Canvas will give you a drop-down of all the people able to be tagged.   2. Canvas collapses threads automatically  Canvas will collapse discussions threads so you only see…

  • Canvas,  Educational Tools,  Teaching & Learning

    Canvas Update: Assignments Enhancements 

    Reading Time: 3 minutes Canvas has been working on modifications to both assignments and discussions – and the changes are now ready to be live! In these two weeks leading up to the release of the updated assignments and discussions, we’ll be going through everything you need to know about the changes.   This week, we’re looking at the assignment enhancements. These are primarily student-facing interface adjustments to track the “life cycle” of an assignment more easily. Let’s take a look!  Here’s a screenshot of an updated assignment page.   With the update, Canvas has moved or added a few things:  The next chunk of the page is very much the same…

  • Canvas

    Submitting Final Grades from Canvas to the Registrar

    Reading Time: < 1 minute It’s a simple process to submit your final course grades to the registrar from Canvas. Before you start this process, however, you’ll want to follow these three tips for checking your Canvas gradebook to make sure you’re all squared away. Once you’re ready, follow these three steps:  1. Click the “Submit Grades to Registrar” link in your course menu.  If you don’t see the link there, click “Settings” in the course menu then the “Navigation” tab. Drag and drop “Submit Grades to Registrar” from the inactive items list to the active items list and click “Save.”  2. Scan the information on the “Submit Grades” page. …

  • Canvas

    Three Tips for Checking your Canvas Gradebook before Submitting Final Grades

    Reading Time: 2 minutes Finals are next week, so it’s time to think about wrapping up your courses and preparing to submit your grades. Submitting grades is a quick process, but there are a few items you’ll need to do before you click that button. 1. Check your course grading scheme You should have a grading system defined in your syllabus with the values defined for each grade letter. Canvas can display that letter grade to both you and your students, but you need to make sure you have this setting enabled with the correct values set. 2. Check your grade breakdown The grade breakdown is different from the grading scheme!…

  • Canvas,  Teaching & Learning

    Beginning of the Semester Reminders and Tips 

    Reading Time: 2 minutes Welcome to the start of a new semester! Today we’re going be chatting about some tips and reminders to make this first week (and the rest of the semester) easier. We know there’s a big gap between semester starts, so it’s easy for some of these things to slip your memory.   Combining Canvas sections  You may be teaching multiple sections of the same course but want to combine all your students into one section so you have a single place to work on the course. Canvas makes it simple to combine those multiple sections into one. A brief note: you’ll need to combine them before students…

  • Canvas,  Educational Tools,  Teaching & Learning

    Canvas Update: New Quizzes Can Build on Last Attempt 

    Reading Time: 2 minutes Canvas has allowed instructors to give students multiple attempts on quizzes for a while, but they recently modified this feature. Now, Canvas allows instructors to choose whether a student must re-do the entire quiz in subsequent attempts or if they only need to answer questions they had previously gotten wrong.   Accessing this feature  This feature is already live in Canvas and can be accessed in the settings page for a New Quiz. Toggle “allow multiple attempts” on, then check the box for “Build on last attempt.”   When this feature is enabled, students can reattempt questions until they either get it correct or run out of allowed…

  • Canvas,  Educational Tools,  Teaching & Learning

    Canvas Update: Canvas Links 

    Reading Time: 3 minutes Canvas is improving how linking works throughout courses. One of these changes that we’ll be talking about has already been implemented, but the other two have yet to be released.   Course link sidebar displays name of current link  The first change Canvas has made is already present in your courses. Previously, if you wanted to change a link that you’d already added to the Rich Content Editor, it was faster to just remove the link entirely and create a new link. Now, Canvas has made it simple to replace the link – and it shows the name of whatever you currently have linked in the sidebar.   To…

  • Canvas,  Educational Tools,  Teaching & Learning

    Canvas Update: New Quizzes Rich Content Editor and Hiding Quizzes Worth Zero Points in Gradebook 

    Reading Time: 2 minutes Canvas is updating New Quizzes once again on June 17. With these updates, the Rich Content Editor (RCE) will now be available to both instructors and students, and instructors can choose to hide New Quizzes worth zero points in the gradebook.   Rich Content Editor  Canvas is finally enabling the Rich Content Editor in New Quizzes! With this change, the content editor you use everywhere else in Canvas will be what you use as you create New Quizzes – and it’s what students will use when they need to type any answers.   Having the RCE in New Quizzes means that all features specific to it will be…