We started revamping our science curriculum a couple years back as a part of a big STEM push as an institution (complete with a new building). Lovingly called STEM 1 initially, now Science 9: Chemical and Physical Systems, the course Freshman take co...

The obvious benefit of Canvas for assignments is the “green” benefit of going paperless for papers, assignments, tests, and quizzes. A feature which has been used in some of our Psychology and Counseling courses are group assignments. It is great to ...

I was speaking with a high school metal shop teacher the other day.  He had what I thought as a neat way to use Canvas in his lab.  The students must demonstrate how to safely use various pieces of equipment throughout the semester.  When a student i...

I had a teacher request that tests in her class not be available in Canvas unless students were using Safe Exam Browser.   SEB is a free open source lock down browser similar to Respondus, but free!So I slapped together a quick little snippet of java...

Update: The New Quizzes feature is now available in production. Content from the classic quizzes must be migrated to new quizzes. Currently New quizzes cannot accept publisher QTI files so content must be imported in the classic quiz tool and then mi...

I LOVE the use of Rubrics within Canvas!Scenario: Previously, I would print out dozens of copies of a rubric- I use rubrics to provide clear expectations for my students. Traditionally, I make copies to handout when I assign a project and ask for stu...

I'll start off this blog post by stating that I am not, by any means, an expert in creating professional looking newsletters.I decided to start sending out a newsletter to our full-time faculty and adjuncts via e-mail this semester.  To date, we've s...

This is probably the most frequently asked question that comes through our help desk. A lot has changed in Canvas recently that makes it much easier to accommodate students but also a bit more confusing. I created a slidedoc to give to faculty a gene...

I can't tell you how often I have trained faculty where the whole climate of the room changes when I share design tools and assets. Eyes light up, jaws drop, and the room is filled with oohs and aahs when I share a tool as simple as Da Button Factory...

This collaborative document is provided in connection with this blog post: Connecting With Students: Consider Their Point Of View. All registered users can "Edit" this doc and add valuable instructional design resource links.   IMPORTANT: this is a c...

While I love working on Canvas and teaching others how to use the platform, one thing that I found confusing that also seems to regularly confuse the new users I work with is that the term "Group" is used in a lot of different circumstances.I recentl...

The beginning of a new semester is an exciting time for institutions, admins, instructors, and students. We’ve compiled a checklist of frequently seen issues during this time that will help you avoid any hiccups to ensure your semester starts smoothl...

Introduction to this SeriesThis is the second document in a series that I will be writing in regards to using the Canvas Styleguide. If you are unaware, the Styleguide is a public tool used by our engineers to make Canvas look and feel consistent acr...

Update: The style guide has been deprecated and replaced by InstUI. For more details, please see InstUI: Instructure’s Style Guide 2.0Introduction to this SeriesThis is the first document in a series that I will be writing in regards to using the Can...

A new semester is upon us and this provides a great opportunity to get moving on your health goals. This summer my husband and I started juicing! I had the crap scared out of me while watching two documentaries (currently available on Netflix), Fat, ...

SynopsisThis document will show you how to use Microsoft Excel and the Canvas Provisioning Report to generate a list of all courses with their teachers that are Unpublished (or Published). Three solutions are presented: a recommended approach using E...

Canvas I will share an "Academic Apple" with the Instructional Design group.  Every beginning to an academic year is different than the other, however many things remain the same.  For instance our institution uses master courses that populate the on...

Amongst other things, here are five things I do before the start of the September term:Prepare face-to-face Canvas orientation sessions for new and returning students.Provide advice and support to new and existing academic and professional services s...

Our institution has a distributed campus model that follows the traditional semester structure for courses, while our Distance Education program utilizes the rolling registration model for courses. The DE program is easy because it is more of a “set ...

Our team of instructional designers always looks forward to a new term, and we do so with a S.M.I.L.E.Suggest faculty review our helpful resources. - We have extensive resources available to faculty (including ourselves), and the beginning of a term ...

As a teacher and professional educator, I love student teachers! Having a student teacher is a rich, reflective and rewarding experience. If you think about it, it's what renews our profession. (renew = make new)As a IT/IS Professional, Student Teach...

I love this Canvas Community mission!I am a full-time instructional designer with the occasional opportunity to teach a class or series. A large part of my job is to ensure that IU instructors are prepared and successful in the online courses they te...

Inspired by Deactivated user​'s awesome post Welcome Back - Start of School 2015-2016!​ I sought to create a visual guide or presentation that could be used by anyone that needed to give an update to their staff or students on some of the new changes...

Update: August 26, 2017This was one of my early works and before I learned how to package it to make it easy for people to use. I've repackaged it and made it act more like the other Canvancements I've written. The script still worked after these two...

Quick InstallMake sure a user script manager such as Tampermonkey is installed and enabled.Install the sort-rubric.users.js fileMore information is available on my Sort a Rubric Canvancement page.Update: October 24, 2019With the October 23, 2019, dep...

SynopsisThis will show how you can execute two lines of JavaScript code inside your browser that will add drag and drop functionality to a rubric and allow you change the order of the criteria.IntroductionBack in April,  @Chris_Hofer ​ created a feat...

If you have recently purchased HMH Common Cartridge text books, you may have found that they are extremely large and import into Canvas as one GIANT module that is extremely time consuming to break apart.  We have discovered a (completely unsupported...

If any of you have practicums in your embedded in your courses and/or if you are a public school teacher, can you please add one objective/skill  you would want pre-service teachers to have when they join the teaching field. Please feel free to add t...

(I originally posted this as a comment to but figured it was worth having here for others)I thought it might be helpful to share my strategies for locating the page and offending link when I am troubleshooting a broken link issue. In this example le...

At Instructurecon this year, I presented a session on badges. While there are several solutions for badging that integrate with Canvas and more being developed, my current favorite is Canvabadges. More than platform and how to make badges, I think it...