Emergency Online Teaching - Helpful Links
This document is essentially a CANVAS user guide. Admittedly, this sort of document already exists online. But my guide is a streamlined list for your convenience. It contains three things:
- UK Stuff
- A list of links to tutorials for CANVAS tools I've used most often.
- Two recommendations when creating online content.
- KISS. Keep it simple
Try to create something functional first and foremost. Be satisfied with that - especially if you're not adept at Canvas already, even if this isn't exactly what you want.
- With this in mind, I've put together a listing of links to tutorials not for everything that you can do in Canvas but rather for those elements of Canvas that I think most people (me, particularly) use most often.
- The simplest elements in CANVAS that I use most often include:
- Announcements
- This is my record of instructions to the class.
- (I, personally, do not use the CANVAS Inbox at all.)
- Assignments
- If you want something to be in your gradebook, then create an assignment for it.
- If you haven't created an assignment, it won't show up in the gradebook.
- You can create weighted assignments. For instance, the midterm in one of my class is worth 10% of the total score.
- To weight assignments, you must create an assignment group and place the assignment within that group.
- Bear in mind, CANVAS will just take all points earned and divide this score by points possible within a group. (Since I want my midterm weighted differently than my final, my midterm is in its own group. But my reading quizzes are all in a group together, since I want all the these be be graded as one group and this group to be weighted 15% of the total score.)
- If you have a bunch of pre-Coronavirus assignments in your non-Canvas gradebook already, I recommend against using the CANVAS gradebook as your main gradebook, especially if you're not adept at CANVAS already.
- Quizzes
- Quizzes are a specific sort of assignment. I use these to keep students on track, e.g., reading quizzes.
- Files
- This is where I make my readings and handouts available to students.
- I use folders to organize all my materials, e.g., handouts, library, images, etc.
- Discussion
- These online forums can be very useful to mimic classroom discussion.
- Discussions can be their own assignments. That is to say, you can create graded discussions.
- Creating good, non-confusing graded discussion forums is actually quite challenging. Consequently, I don't necessarily recommend these, if you are not familiar with Canvas already.
- Don't recreate the wheel
There is a lot of online content available on the Interwebs of use. It's worth the time to find these resources and integrate them into your Canvas course rather than to create that content anew all by yourself.