[ARCHIVED] How to get started

[FirstLadyPerma]

I'm brand new to Canvas.  I have to wait to get customer support.  I have watched the videos and the jargon is really not making sense.  Are there any videos of how to start and make a class?  Everything I'm seeing is how to make sub-accounts or an announcement but I just can't find how to make a class that students can take.

[Chris_Hofer · Accepted solution]

Hello there, @FirstLadyPerma ...

Welcome to the world of Canvas!  Building course content in Canvas is going to vary from school to school and potentially from instructor to instructor, too.  So, there isn't just one "correct" way to build course content.  However, there are resources to help you get started...some of which you may have already seen.  For starters, I would suggest that you watch the five videos within Set Up Your Canvas Course in 30 minutes or Less - Canvas Community.

Also, I'm not too sure if you teach in the K-12 level, or if you are in higher education.  But, hopefully some of these YouTube videos (in no particular order) I've found for you will give you some good ideas to get started with your own course.  (Please note, I have not watched all of these videos fully...but they looked like good resources to start with.)

• T U T O R I A L : Design and Customize a Canvas Course - YouTube
• Creating a Course in Canvas LMS Overview - YouTube (I've heard that Ashlee Espinosa has some great Canvas tutorials on her YouTube channel)
• Canvas Course Setup (FULL TUTORIAL) - YouTube (another by Ashlee Espinosa)
• HOW TO BUILD A CANVAS COURSE IN LESS THAN 30 MINUTES -The Beginners Step-by-Step Guide - YouTube
• How to Create Your Canvas Course Homepage & Other Pages from Scratch - YouTube

Another good resource for you might be the Course Setup Checklist...just to be sure that you've included all the things that you want your students to have access to in your course.  How do I use the Course Setup Checklist? - Canvas Community

The Canvas video tutorials (which you have probably seen) are also a great resource for you.  I like to direct people to these videos first...and then if they have more questions or want more detail on how to do things (to take a deeper dive), then they can look at the written documentation.

I hope this will be enough information to get you started.  I would suggest first checking out some of the videos I've linked above to see if any of those look interesting to you.  Feel free to post additional questions to this thread in case you have questions along the way.  There are plenty of great Community members here ready and willing to help you find the best ways to design the things you want in your Canvas course(s).  Good luck!

[Chris_Hofer · Accepted solution]

Hello there, @FirstLadyPerma ...

Welcome to the world of Canvas!  Building course content in Canvas is going to vary from school to school and potentially from instructor to instructor, too.  So, there isn't just one "correct" way to build course content.  However, there are resources to help you get started...some of which you may have already seen.  For starters, I would suggest that you watch the five videos within Set Up Your Canvas Course in 30 minutes or Less - Canvas Community.

Also, I'm not too sure if you teach in the K-12 level, or if you are in higher education.  But, hopefully some of these YouTube videos (in no particular order) I've found for you will give you some good ideas to get started with your own course.  (Please note, I have not watched all of these videos fully...but they looked like good resources to start with.)

• T U T O R I A L : Design and Customize a Canvas Course - YouTube
• Creating a Course in Canvas LMS Overview - YouTube (I've heard that Ashlee Espinosa has some great Canvas tutorials on her YouTube channel)
• Canvas Course Setup (FULL TUTORIAL) - YouTube (another by Ashlee Espinosa)
• HOW TO BUILD A CANVAS COURSE IN LESS THAN 30 MINUTES -The Beginners Step-by-Step Guide - YouTube
• How to Create Your Canvas Course Homepage & Other Pages from Scratch - YouTube

Another good resource for you might be the Course Setup Checklist...just to be sure that you've included all the things that you want your students to have access to in your course.  How do I use the Course Setup Checklist? - Canvas Community

The Canvas video tutorials (which you have probably seen) are also a great resource for you.  I like to direct people to these videos first...and then if they have more questions or want more detail on how to do things (to take a deeper dive), then they can look at the written documentation.

I hope this will be enough information to get you started.  I would suggest first checking out some of the videos I've linked above to see if any of those look interesting to you.  Feel free to post additional questions to this thread in case you have questions along the way.  There are plenty of great Community members here ready and willing to help you find the best ways to design the things you want in your Canvas course(s).  Good luck!

[FirstLadyPerma]

Thanks for the links.  They seem like they are for instructors?  How would an administrator that is making new curriculum create?  Most of the videos say that your school, administration, did this or that when I am the administration.

[kmeeusen · Accepted solution]

Hi @FirstLadyPerma 

Are you the Admin for a school-hosted instance of Canvas, or are you simply using a Free-for-Teachers (FFT) version of Canvas? This is important!

If you are using FFT, then you have no admin role or permissions as that role does not exist in FFT. You would follow the Instructor's Guide lessons for creating a course,  How do I start a new course from the Dashboard as an instructor? Then you would add your enrollments after creating your content - @Chris_Hofer has provided good info for that. This guide will help you add users, How do I add users to a course?

If you are using hosted version and are the admin for the hosted version:

• To create a new course,
  • Login as admin,
  • Go to Courses, Click +Course on upper right corner of page,
  • Follow prompts.
• To add users,
  • Click People,
  • Click +People to add users,
  • Follow Prompts.
• Add users to course as students,
  • Open course,
  • Navigate to People,
  • Click +People,
  • Follow Prompts.

As the admin of a hosted version you have many more options for creating courses and enrolling users, including integrating this process with your school's Student Management System, but we'll save that for a future lesson.

Good luck,

Kelley

[FirstLadyPerma]

There are no prompts to creating a course.  It just makes a course with a big create module.  Is there a step-by-step approach?  I am an admin, its not free to use.  Just feeling lost as those videos just say to get the files from the admin which I am.  How do most people get started on Canvas?  I can't figure this out.

[Chris_Hofer]

Hello there, @FirstLadyPerma ...

I'm a little confused with the terminology you are using.  When you say that you are an administrator and want to make new curriculum, that is a little confusing to me.  When I think of curriculum, I think of the actual course content that will be given to students in the course.  Are you asking about how to create the Canvas course "shell" which will house all of the content for your course?  I'm also a bit confused when you say that the videos are telling you to get files from an admin.  I'm not familiar with that, ether.

You are correct that my first response to you contained several resources (videos and written documentation) for instructors on how to start building a Canvas course from scratch?  Did you take a look at any of the videos from Ashlee that I linked to for you?  Her content is really good, so I'd highly recommend that you watch those.  It sounds like, from your latest response, that you're wanting to know how to add/build content in a Canvas course "shell"?  Again, I think some of those videos I linked to in my initial reply to you yesterday would be worth watching.  For the most part, as you are building content in a Canvas course, most of it will be text on a page.  But, if you have any graphics or any documents (Word, PDF, PPT, etc.) that you want to include, those would have to be uploaded from your computer to your Canvas course.

If you can maybe provide a few specific things you'd like to do to get started, then we can give you some more guidance on how to get started.  Thanks!