Canvas Show & Tell

The different speakers for this Canvas Show & Tell highlighted different features that they used for Course Design. I review them by speaker below. 

For Dr. Fortner, the entirety of her course, from readings, to assignments, to quizzes, and even the course schedule are built into weekly modules in Canvas. 

Dr. Fortner uses this technique to minimize the number of links that students have to go to. Because Canvas allows you to build assignments directly in modules and allows students to turn in their assignments within modules, her course design simplifies what students have to engage with, theoretically minimizing the amount of extra work they have to do when navigating course content. 

Dr. Todorova has worked closely with Dr. Fortner and uses a similar modular structure in designing weekly readings and homework for her students. An extra step she has taken has been to embed PDF files into pages within her modules to ensure that students stay inside the Canvas site when doing course readings or watching videos. 

To do this, faculty need to upload the PDF they want to use to their Files in Canvas, then, they need to go to their module and use the + button to create a new page. 

In the new page, faculty can click Insert, and then navigate down to Documents, and then select Course Documents.  Once the faculty member chooses the right course file, the file will be inserted into the page. The final step is to turn this embedded file into a link that opens within Canvas. To do this, faculty need to left click on the pdf link in pages, and then click the button that hovers and says "Link Options." A right hand menu will appear. Faculty should click the Preview Inline and Expand Preview by Default. This will ensure that the PDF automatically displays when the students open the page.