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CTOL: Your Canvas Course

 CENTER FOR TEACHING & ONLINE LEARNING

Location

Building 22, Room 181

Hours

Monday - Friday

8:00am - 4:00pm

Email

ctol@spscc.edu

Your Canvas Course

Faculty Canvas Support

We are here to support you as you start using Canvas. If you have questions, please reach out to our team and we can schedule a time to work together.

Listed below are the most frequently requested Canvas support topics. For information about a topic, select the topic and the content will display. For more in-depth tutorials and information, visit the Canvas Instructor Guides, attend a CTOL training, or ask us for support.

Canvas Training

The State Board for Technical & Community colleges offers a fully-featured Canvas training, about 20 hours of facilitated asynchronous learning. 

Quick Set Up Tips
  • Navigation menu: Edit your navigation menu to remove unwanted options and decrease clutter. Read the “Navigation Settings” tab below for more info.
  • Set a home page: You can set your home page to be a static page or your course modules. A static page has the benefit of being a welcoming home to your course. For support creating a visually appealing home page, contact ctol@spscc.edu.
  • Import content, don’t copy: When you copy and paste content that includes course links, they will not work in the new course. Students will get a message that says “You don’t have permission to view this file.” Instead, always import course content from one course to another. Review how to import content.
  • Reset Hypothesis Assignments: For each course, you need to re-link any Hypothesis assignments. If you don’t re-link the assignments, students will get an error message “Couldn’t get the file from Canvas.” Get additional Hypothesis support.
Accessibility in Canvas

Accessibility Training

SBCTC offers accessibility training for faculty and staff at Washington community and technical colleges. 

Using the Accessibility Checker

We have an LTI in Canvas that allows you to check the accessibility of your course contents. To use the Accessibility Checker, follow the instructions from Blackboard.

Alternative Formats

Learn about alternative formats in this guide from Blackboard.

Syllabus

Add Your Syllabus

The first Canvas step for most faculty is to upload their SPSCC syllabus file to the Syllabus page in their Canvas course. Although the Canvas Syllabus page contains a machine-generated Course Summary, SPSCC faculty are required to post their Syllabus document within their Canvas course as well. You can do this easily by editing the syllabus page.

Be sure that your syllabus file is prepared for the course and quarter you're teaching. When your file is completed and stored in a location you can access from Canvas, upload it to the syllabus page via the Rich Content Editor.

Display Your Syllabus File In the Page

It's a great idea to upload and display an inline preview of your syllabus on our course's Syllabus page!

Canvas Home Page

Set your Canvas Home page

You can change your Course Home Page to reflect one of five layout options: the Recent Activity Dashboard, Pages Front Page, the Course Modules, the Assignment List, or the Syllabus.

Note: You must set a Front Page before selecting the Pages Front Page option. Additionally, only Published pages can be set as the Front Page.

Open Course

In Global Navigation, click the Courses link [1], then click the name of the course [2].


Open Course

Choose Home Page

In the Home Page sidebar, click the Choose Home Page button.


Choose Home Page

Select Home Page Layout

Click the radio button next to the Home Page layout you prefer.


Select Home Page Layout

Set Front Page

If you want to select a Pages Front Page but the link is grayed out, you must first set a Front Page.

Note: Only Published pages can be set as the Front Page.
Make sure the page you want to set as the Front Page is published.


Set Front Page

Save Home Page Layout

Click the Save button.

Save Home Page Layout

Navigation Settings

Define your Course Navigation

Changing your navigation in Canvas is an easy way to shape your online course. For learning effectiveness, having fewer menu items streamlines the student user experience. By hiding items your students aren't going to use, you simplify the look and feel of your Canvas course.

You can also "hide" content types -- one example would be the Files menu item-- that you would prefer to reveal to students through in-page links or via your modules page. 

This video gives you a quick guide to using your settings page navigation tab to order and hide or disable items that aren't essential to your instruction.

Setup Microsoft Teams in Canvas

In your course menu go to Settings,

and click on the blue Integrations tab in the top row:

You'll see the slider button, and the > Microsoft Sync title:

  1. Click on the slider to enable the integration State
  2. Click on the > icon to reveal the Sync Now button
  3. Click on the Sync Now button

When the Sync has been scheduled, you'll receive a success alert onscreen:

Once the integration is enabled, a sync to Microsoft Teams will be triggered automatically by any changes to course enrollments.

Note When enrollments changes are made in a course that has enabled Microsoft Sync, it may take up to 10 minutes for those changes to sync to Microsoft Teams.

When you've completed the sync process your Microsoft Teams Menu item will change to Microsoft Teams classes:

teams classes

Click on the menu item, this will populate your Canvas class into a Team; when the page refreshes, you will see an icon with your class name on the page.

teams page in canvas

Click in the icon area to be taken to your Teams app or web client; this will transition you to a web window that offers you and your students the option to download an app or work on the web version of Teams:

MS Teams app choice options

Once you've chosen an option, you will be redirected to the Teams app. where you will be offered options to set up your team:

Once you activate the team, you may continue to create and add to it;  students can see content you add and receive posts in the team channel

  1. Upload files, if desired
  2. Create a OneNote class notebook, if desired\
  3. Activate the team to make it visible to students 

Apps for MS Teams

MS Teams offers you the option to add "apps" to your Team. Check the list below to find out more. You may see other apps available inside your Teams interface, but only the ones in this list will work inside Canvas. 

Download the pdf: MS Teams Apps list for SPSCC