Coming to Canvas This Summer

While you enjoy a well-deserved summer break, Canvas will be launching a new Draft State feature and we think you are going to like it. The new Draft State will be officially implemented on July 5, 2014 and we will be offering support to make the transition as seamless as possible.

Draft State allows content in Assignments, Quizzes, Modules, Pages, and Discussions to exist in an unpublished (draft) state. Unpublished content is invisible to students and excluded from grade calculations...until you are ready to 'Publish' your content.

Fast-forward the video below to the 2:05 minute to hear how Draft State will be working in your Canvas courses starting in July.

Once Draft State is enabled you will see changes in:

• Assignments, 
• Quizzes, 
• Modules, 
• Pages, and 
• Discussions 

which will make your interface with Canvas more consistent in layout and functionality.  Additionally, here are some other content-specific changes you’ll see in Draft State:

• Pages will have an Index page and displays page titles
• Individual pages will not include sidebars
• Instructors will be able to select any page to be the front page of their course
• Quizzes will not have to be republished if the content is changed

The Draft State changes will soon be second nature to you as you create and publish your Canvas classrooms.  We will be providing more information about Draft State in the coming weeks, so stay tuned.

If you have any specific question we would be happy to speak with you directly, please call 413-565-6880 or email us at online@baypath.edu 

Warning: Don't Lose Your Announcements & Discussions

When you create a new Announcement or Discussion and try to navigate away from the page without saving, Canvas will now confirm whether or not it should leave the page - with an unsaved changes warning message. This feature helps instructors avoid losing entire announcements or discussions inadvertently.

A great tip to avoid losing work is to create your draft Announcements & Discussions offline, in a Google or Word Doc., TextEdit, Pages, or other open source document creator.  Once you have rewritten and polished your work, simply copy and paste it into Canvas. This, too, helps prevent lost work.

In fact, this is a reminder Announcement you can share with your students right now. To learn more about Announcements, visit the Canvas Guides. 

The details for these new features have been sourced from Canvas’ User Guides.  Please feel free to contact me (mwiseman@baypath.edu) for any questions you may have about using Canvas for your Bay Path class.

Supported Web Browswers

As of May 24, 2014 Canvas will no longer support Internet Explore 9.  After that date, Internet Explorer 10 will be the oldest version of IE supported. We find Canvas functions superbly in: Chrome, Safari and Firefox web browsers and Canvas supports the last two versions of every web browser release.

We also highly recommend  updating to the newest version of whatever browser you are using as well as the most up-to-date Flash plug-in.  Once you update, double check your web browser privacy settings as well.

For more information on supported web browsers, visit: Which Browsers Does Canvas Support?

The details for these new features have been sourced from Canvas’ User Guides.  Please feel free to contact me (mwiseman@baypath.edu) for any questions you may have about using Canvas for your Bay Path class.

User Profile and Images

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. Posting your picture to your Canvas User Profile really helps your students to get to know you and adding a couple sentences about you [included in your bio] models ‘best practices’ for your online classroom. Canvas has made it even easier to upload pictures to your profile.

Users can still upload an existing picture from their computer. When uploading a picture, users can also drag a picture from their desktop and drop it into the uploader. Pictures can be cropped and resized.

Now, Canvas also allows you to "Take a Picture" directly from your computer.

The user’s profile picture folder will automatically store a copy of the saved profile picture. When a new picture is saved in a user’s profile, the new picture will override the existing picture file in the user’s folder.

Notes:

• Canvas no longer allows users to select a picture from previously uploaded profile pictures. 
• The Take a Picture option is not supported when using Safari or Internet Explorer. Canvas responds best within the Chrome browser 

Take 2 minutes to double check if you have uploaded a photo to your Canvas profile, if not, try adding a new picture and remember to add a few sentences to your Bio.

Your students really do appreciate getting to know you.

The details for these new features have been sourced from Canvas’ User Guides.  Please feel free to contact me (mwiseman@baypath.edu) for any questions you may have about using Canvas for your Bay Path class.

Use a LTI to Seamlessly Upload Videos

Canvas continually works to update the user experience within Canvas and while we don't always see these features, we wanted to point out one you might consider implementing in your Canvas course.

In Canvas LIT stands for Learning Tool Interoperability.  These are external tools which have been designed to operate within Canvas.  The LTIs create functionality which enable a more streamline user experience.  You can read in more depth about LIT's here.

Here is how to link a YouTube video using the LTI tool.

Step 1: Open your Canvas Course and click on 'Settings'

Step 2: Click the 'Apps' tab

Step 3: Add a new app by clicking the 'View the App Configuration' button

Step 4: Scroll down to view a selection of apps and choose one to install

Step 5: Add the tool

Step 6: The app will appear in your list of External Apps

Step 7: When you add content to your module, select 'External Tool' and choose which tool you desire [in this example we chose YouTube] 

Step 8: Select a resource to link from your External Tool

Step 9: The chosen URL will appear in the URL window, along with the Page Name [which you can modify] and then click 'Add Item'

Then within the Module content will appear, in this instance the video. This streamlines your uploading process and allows for the content [video in this example] to open directly inside Canvas.

The details for these new features have been sourced from Canvas’ User Guides.  Please feel free to contact me (mwiseman@baypath.edu) for any questions you may have about using Canvas for your Bay Path class.