Teacher Appreciation 2018 | Home Page Templates

[lphilips]

From: Our Instructional Design Team 

To: Our Amazing Teachers

We feel that a well-designed course home page can inspire students to engage more deeply and quickly with learning materials. In appreciation for all that you do, we have created two customizable home page templates that you are free to use in your courses as-is, modify as desired, and share with others. 

We hope these home page templates will support your endeavors in crafting an exceptional online learning experience for both you, and your students!

Grades K5	Grades 6-12
Includes Home Page with editable course title, course banner, and "Welcome" text placeholder 3 Customizable Buttons:  Learn | Help | Parents Directions on how to modify template buttons and banner "Welcome to Class" student Module with content page templates: Support & Parent Resources	Includes Home Page with editable course title, course banner, and "Welcome" text placeholder 3 Customizable Buttons: About Your Teacher | Class Resources | Learning Modules Directions on how to modify template buttons and banner "Welcome to Class" student Module with content page templates: About Your Teacher & Class Resources
File Access Select the following link to automatically download a copy of the K5 Home Page Template export package: K5 Teacher Appreciation Home Page Template	File Access Select the following link to automatically download a copy of the 6-12 Home Page Template export package: 6-12 Teacher Appreciation Home Page Template
Directions Please note: For an optimal experience, please view this video using Google Chrome. Written directions are also available below the video.  Part 1 | Importing Content Into Canvas Course Shell Importing files are also explained in the following Canvas Guide: How do I import a Canvas course export package? Download the Home Page Template course export file of your choosing (linked above) Open the Canvas course in which you'd like to upload the home page template. As we note below, we recommend that you load these packages into empty course shells in order to prevent the potential overriding of your current course content. If you do not have an empty course shell (or course in which you feel comfortable loading these materials), please contact your Canvas Administrator.  Select "Settings" from the course navigation menu. Select "Import Course Content"  from the right-side menu and complete the following: For Content Type, select "Canvas Course Export Package" For Source, select "Choose File" and then locate the home page template file you've just downloaded (typically found in the Downloads folder on your computer) and unzipped Select the file and then "Open" For Content, select "All content" Finally, select "Import" A green box with the words "Completed" will appear once the upload is complete.  The content will now be uploaded to your course! Part 2 | Customizing Your Home Page Selecting the "Home" button will take you to your new home page design. Within the Modules button, you will find two Modules that compliment this home page template. The first Module, "Customize Your Home Page" provides you with links to the customizable banner and button images. The second Module, "Welcome to Class: Your Journey Begins Here!" contains sample pages that are linked from the home page buttons.
Pro Tip: We recommend loading files only into empty course shells in order to prevent overriding any of your current content, or impacting your students' course experience. If you have any questions, please reach out to your Customer Success Manager.

More Appreciation from the Instructional Design Team

• If you'd like to learn more about our services, check out our recent Canvas LIVE Partner Day Keynote: Confessions of the Canvas Design Team
• We also have a customizable Course Evaluation Checklist available for your use! 

Please comment below. We’d love to hear from you!

If you would like to learn more about our services, please contact your CSM or shauna.vorkink@carruslearn.com  - Content Services Director at svorkink@instructure.com.

[Bobby2]

Many thanks for the share Lily. I've passed this on to a few people. It will be a good starting point for some people who are new to Canvas.

[lphilips]

Thank you bobby.pedersen@education.tas.gov.au for your comment and for sharing the templates with others. Hopefully, they will find them to be of some use as they begin to explore and design their Canvas courses. 😃

[MattHanes]

Thanks for this! I will definitely be showing this to my elementary folks. We are really struggling with adoption in the elementary schools.

[Bobby2]

Hanes.Matthew.B@muscogee.k12.ga.uswe face a similar challenge. Do you have a plan to address this?

[MattHanes]

I don't really. I was a high school teacher so putting myself in the shoes of an elementary school teacher has always been a bit of a challenge for me. I'm just trying to make it as easy to get started as I can. I build their courses and update their rosters using the SIS imports so everything is already there. Honestly, the biggest hurdle has been the parent accounts. Teachers of younger students are more interested in communicating with parents than the students using tools like Canvas or Seesaw or Remind. I think once we get the Parent 2.0 changes, we might be able to tackle that again. 

Another approach I'm taking is introducing Canvas as "an app for your school" to get the administrators on board. So I build "school-wide" courses that have all the students that administrators can use to communicate with all students via the Canvas apps. I'm hoping to get more of the elementary admins on board after a meeting with them this summer. 

[Bobby2]

Sounds like you are doing an amazing job Hanes.Matthew.B@muscogee.k12.ga.us

And I completely agree re parent connections. Mind you, they are terribly important and teachers need to be praised for finding tools that help to make those links between home and school. Like you, I can't wait for the 2.0 changes.

[hunter]

This is fabulous. Thanks for sharing.

[lphilips]

Thank you hunter‌! 😃 

[schachernp]

Thank you Deactivated user‌ for the AWESOME resources!  And thanks to those that commented too!!  You thoughts and ideas can be just as helpful!!  Thanks to everyone!! 

[kmeeusen]

This is what "Community" is all about! In fact, you put the "unity" in community!

Thank you for the sharing!

Kelley

[tobe_baeyens]

This is great. I love the link to the image in Google Drive on the customise page. I didn't know about this. I've tried something similar with

1. Canva. The problem is that most teachers do need to make an account.
2. PowerPoint. If you right click on an object or group in PowerPoint you can save it as an image. This is another easy way to create simple buttons.

I do prefer this Google Draw thing. It's just there. One click and you can start editing.

[lphilips]

Thank you tobe.baeyens@ehb.be‌! I've found myself alternating between PowerPoint and Google Draw, depending on the need of the project. I do hope that Microsoft creates a Google Draw equivalent in the near future. And if anyone knows of one, please let me know! 😃 

[jlubkinchavez]

Thanks, Lily and team. I wonder if you can point me to any additional resources on developing homepages that are visually engaging AND accessible. Thanks!

[lphilips]

Hi jel72@georgetown.edu‌! Thanks so much for reaching out. 😃 

As I work through the design of a home page, I typically have a few different accessibility and graphic design resources at my fingertips. Below, you will find some of my “go to” resources that, hopefully, aid in your own design process. 

Accessibility Focus

• Canvas Community Accessibility Group
• Canvas General Accessibility Design Guidelines
• How do I use the Accessibility Checker in the Rich Content Editor as an instructor?
  • I use the bulleted list at the top of this page as a checklist
• WebAim Color Contrast Checker (an amazing tool!)

Engaging Design Focus

• Canvas Community Instructional Designers Group
• Outside of Canvas, you might find that a search for “homepage web design” provides a lot of user experience design (UX) tips/tricks that can translate nicely to a Canvas Home Page. You may have to mentally convert “customers” to “students” while reading through some of the results/articles.
  • UsabilityGeek - How Scrolling Can Make (Or Break) Your User Experience
  • Canva - Website color schemes: The palettes of 50 visually impactful websites to inspire you
• Other Graphic Design Resources
  • Unsplash & Pixabay (CC0 images)
  • Coolors.co - Color Scheme Generator

I hope this information finds you well! 

-Lily

[Profe_Amatore]

Awesome!!!!😁

[Janetbailey]

My template is highlighted in red and I am unable to download it onto my IPad. Any suggestions?

[RLP69]

Great Work

[Bonita]

Thank you so much for all you do.

[Mr-E]

there would be no teachers if there wasn't someone wanting to learn...

[Mr-E]

Fire burn and cauldron bubble...

[swill186]

Thank you for the information. I am sure this will be helpful as I get into my course. It is good to read those of you who appear more knowledgable on this topic. 

[gclarke2]

Thanks for the templates!

[MrSwitz]

Help,

So below is the comment I've been getting and which has made it impossible for me to down load the sample home page template. Been trying to do this for hours now.

Adobe Acrobat Reader could not open '6-12-teacher-appreciation-gift-export (5).imscc' because it is either not a supported file type or because the file has been damaged (for example, it was sent as an email attachment and wasn't correctly decoded).

[Stefanie]

@MrSwitz 

The reason you are experiencing difficulty is that the .imscc package needs to be imported into a Canvas course as detailed in Part 1 of the blog post (the instructions provide the link to How do I import a Canvas course export package?). Once you have the template imported into a Canvas course shell (sandbox), you will be able to modify it to suit your needs.

[williare2]

How do you control the size of your buttons?  It seems like you must create the image the size you want outside of Canvas, and then it comes in without you fiddling in the RCE or HTML?

I am having trouble with mine coming into Canvas large and then I try to adjust- at first using pixels and then trying to use percentage of screen width in order to accommodate for different devices...though that might not have worked out well on a cell phone...it didnt work anyway.

I was able to use a table and then set size by pixels inside the table, but I am concerned with the screen reader.  I understand Canvas doesnt annotate their tables in ways that the screen readers relate to.  That sounds like an interface between developers that needs to work better.

Any help appreciated- williare2@pwcs.edu!

[kimberlywinget]

Can you download a page that is already set up, and ready to go? Do you have to make your page from scratch? 

Kimberly Winget

[SMD]

The pages really look great!

[mheffernan50]

Wow this really gave me lots of ideas to update my Home Page. Thanks so much for reminding me to make it interesting for my students

[missmarymack]

I'm new to Canvas! I love these teacher home page templates! Beautiful!

[mheffernan50]

I am writing a Homepage for a new course and there are many helpful suggestions here Still have much to learn. Thanks for the support

[ebyrd1]

All of it

just wonderful....

[wscc-1]

Great ideas for home page templates.