Reading Time: 3 minutesIt’s time to dive back into the Canvas Accessibility Checker and chat about the rest of the issues it checks for. This week, we’ll be taking a closer look at image alt text, tables, and lists. Alt text Canvas checks for a few different issues that can pop up with alt text – if an image has alt text, if the alt text is different from the file name, and how long the alt text is. Canvas does automatically assign the file name as alt text when you upload an image, so you should rarely get the “no alt text error.” For any of the alt text…
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Course Accessibility: Headings, Links, and Color Contrast
Reading Time: 4 minutesToday we’re going to start our dive into the new Canvas Accessibility Checker and tackle a few of the issues it checks for. We’ll cover the rest of the items next week, but for now, we’ll focus on the text-based items. Before we start looking at the individual items, let’s chat about how to get to this tool and run the report. In your course, find the “Accessibility” link in your course navigation and click it. The first time you go to this page, you’ll get a note that says you have not yet scanned your course and a prompt to scan the course. Once the scan is complete, you’ll see a graph detailing the kinds of issues and a list…
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Course Accessibility: Intro
Reading Time: < 1 minuteToday, we’re kicking off a new series on accessibility – Canvas has a new tool they’ve launched, and we want to take this opportunity to also revisit accessibility principles and how they apply to each of us – regardless of whether your class is online or face-to-face. While these may seem like they’re just “extra work” or something that doesn’t make a difference, they’re still best practice. And by preparing our courses and materials to be ready for whatever needs a student may have, we’re showing our love for others in action. Across this series, we’ll explore how Canvas tools can help us in this journey – as well as what they don’t cover but we still need to address. We’re excited to dive in and explore all this with…
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Canvas Update: New Microsoft Teams and Meetings LTI
Reading Time: 2 minutesMicrosoft has released their new Canvas LTI after shutting down the previous Teams / Teams Meetings LTIs. Now, you can find multiple Microsoft products all through the same LTI – Microsoft Education. There’s already a handful of Microsoft products included in this LTI, and this is also where they will be adding future experiences/apps. How can I find it? Microsoft Education is already enabled in your course and navigation, but it will likely be near the bottom. To change where it is in your course’s navigation, go to the navigation tab in your course settings and drag and drop it to wherever you want it! While changing…
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Canvas Update: Smart Search
Reading Time: < 1 minuteInstructure has started incorporating AI directly into Canvas with a few features available now and more on the way. Currently, Canvas has added discussion summaries as well as a smart search option in courses. Smart Search allows instructors and students to quickly search course content. Smart Search operates based on its understood context – it isn’t restricted to keyword-based searches like we’re used to with Google or other search engines. This does mean that things you may be used to (like including a search term in quotation marks for an exact search) do not work in Smart Search, but Canvas is working on an updated search…
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Summer 2025 Canvas Roundup
Reading Time: 2 minutesWelcome back for another semester! Summer is always a busy time and a welcomed break from the school year. Because of that, we’re going to highlight some of the Canvas changes to make sure you’re up to speed with the current status of things. Assignments Canvas has made a few tweaks and adjustments to Assignments this year – they made it simpler to update due dates for assignments with “assign to” available in more places, they added a way for students to self-assess their work with the assignment’s rubric, and they have an annotation assignment type! For full details on each of these changes or features, check…
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State of Canvas 2025: Quizzes
Reading Time: 2 minutesSo far, we’ve covered the current state of Assignments and Discussions in Canvas. This week, we’ll be chatting about (New) Quizzes! It’s been a relatively quiet year for New Quizzes so far – the biggest update we’ve talked about has been the update to the moderation settings. But there are a few exciting things that have either already landed or are on the horizon! Text blocks in New Quizzes Have you ever wished that there was an easy way to provide directions or additional information inside a New Quiz? Previously, you could to that through using a Stimulus – but you had to attach questions to it, and…
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State of Canvas 2025: Discussions
Reading Time: 2 minutesLast week, we took a moment to review the current status of Assignments in Canvas. This week, we’re turning our focus to Discussions. We’ve talked about Discussions a few times over the last several months because of some big updates to the tool. We’ll be going over those and more today! Discussion Checkpoints Canvas has finally added multiple due dates for discussions with their Discussion Checkpoints update earlier this year. Now, you can set one due date for students to submit initial replies to the prompt and a second due date for students to submit replies to other students. There was a moment of oddness with how…
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State of Canvas 2025: Assignments
Reading Time: 2 minutesNow that we’ve hit the summer and have half a moment to breathe, we’re going to take the next few weeks to do a comprehensive review of various elements of Canvas. We’ll be taking a look at the current state of the tools, highlighting any major changes that have been made recently, and looking forward at Canvas’ roadmap and future changes. This week, we’ll be looking at Assignments in Canvas. Out of the posts we have planned, assignments is the most “stable” at the moment – we’ve had some changes across the last year, and there isn’t anything huge on the horizon (at the moment). So, let’s…
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Microsoft Teams/Canvas Integration Is Changing – Current Tools Leaving in June
Reading Time: < 1 minuteMicrosoft recently announced that they are in the process of updating some of their LTIs – and the Teams Classes and Teams Meetings LTIs are at the top of the list. Both of these tools in their current iteration will stop working in Canvas June 15, 2025. Microsoft is working a “new, unified experience” that consolidates the capabilities of both of these tools, but there is no further information on this so far. Since we do not know when exactly Microsoft will release new tools, there are some simple workarounds to use after June 15. If you are using Teams Classes, your Team will still exist…