The Product Blog

Since I’m over my first month here, at Instructure, I guess it’s time to write my official introduction. So, hi everyone, my name is Kata, and I’m a Product Manager for Catalog and Commons.

From the first moment when COVID19 hit the entire world, we saw that sharing information and its significance has increased. Three ways that we are helping users are by making sharing available outside the United States, allowing instructors to create and share unique links to resources, and providing creating ways to highlight resources in Commons.

With the last Canvas release, we released a survey on the Commons Search page. Please help us fill it out!

With Monday’s Canvas Beta release, we released an improvement for importing favorite course objects from Commons to Canvas. 

We are happy to let you know that a Beta environment version of Commons is available. 

To support educators in teaching Swift Apple's powerful and intuitive open-source programming language, a new Develop in Swift Professional Learning course from Apple is now available on the Canvas Learning Management System.

Get answers to questions such as, what is the history of Commons?

This document outlines the steps to install and configure Commons in a self-hosted instance of Canvas. If you are not using self-hosted Canvas, please refer to the Commons guides.

We’ve had a few questions about the removal of the rating system in Commons, and we wanted to provide you all with some insight into our thought process.

You guys! We invented a thing!

Well, more specifically, our brilliant engineers invented a thing! Why? Because you asked us for it!

The following FAQ document will be helpful in answering some of your questions related to 'Groups' feature in Commons.

When creating/managing Groups in Commons consider the following suggestions and examples for group creation and management in Commons.

Closing out this month's National Poetry Month theme, we thought we'd conclude by highlighting vocabulary quizzes. What budding poet wouldn't want to take the time to learn more words, right?! Check out these shared K12 resources.

Let's take a bit of a departure from our monthly theme of 'poetry' and focus on Earth Day (which is April 22, 2016). If you're looking for ways to leverage Earth Day activities in your courses or just want to get inspired by photos of our beautiful, green earth, then this post is for you!

In continuing the spirit of National Poetry Month, we wanted to dedicate this week's blog post to love. Many times, poetry is written as a means to demonstrate and describe feelings of love. Well, there's certainly no shortage of love in Commons public.

April is National Poetry Month, so we thought it would be 'poetic' to feature Commons resources that align with this theme. From rhyme to rhythm, here were the resources that stood out.

If you search Commons (public) for Canvas training materials, you'll get a solid array of resources!

What is the total number of public shares to date?

Search the term 'vocabulary' and you'll discover many publicly-shared resources in Commons - from quizzes that increase topical understanding (i.e., Genetics quiz) to general language-building (i.e., English, Spanish quizzes). For K12 students, new words is just part of their on-going language development during these critical learning years.

We can all use constructive feedback on our course content and teaching materials. Whether it's a technical comment about settings or a qualitative thought about design, every little bit helps refine our resources. If you are interested in leaving reviews for resources in Commons​, read these tips ​to ensure your feedback is well-received.

When winter storms start rolling in, we all know that could lead to SNOW DAY!! Missing school due to weather can put a halt to learning or even slow down the momentum of a lesson or unit. While it may be snowing outside, it's not snowing in Canvas. So, it might be worth checking out a few wonderful resources that have been publicly shared in Commons just in case you're snowed in.

In light of National Poetry Month, check out these poetry resources in need of your review.

February is dedicated to a month-long learning about the African American icons, leaders, activists, and inventors who have made significant impacts on American history. And what better way to integrate these topics into Canvas courses than importing just-in-time resources from Commons public.

Commons is a learning object repository that enables educators to find, import, and share resources with the public (or within their institution). Come here for all your news, resources and questions related to Commons.

We want to encourage educators to collaborate on projects together in Canvas and share it publicly in Commons! When people work in groups or in tandem, the course materials and teaching resources developed has no bounds!

​Any user can review content in Commons. But we want to prioritize giving feedback to users who actually want it! So, when sharing publicly, you will be prompted to tag a resource with 'Community Review' to actively request a review. Users can filter content with ‘community review’ and begin reviewing resources.

Ever thought of making your Canvas courses more festive for the holidays? Sarah Pratt, a Customer Success Manager for Instructure and former K-12 teacher of 8+ years, shares several holiday modules which include ‘Holiday Food Trivia’ quiz and the ‘The Night Before Christmas’ sign-language activity.

If you’ve taken a course on the Canvas Network, then you know about their stellar catalog of innovative topics. And now some of these amazing resources are being shared into Commons public!

The beginning of the school year marks many students’ first time using Canvas. Sometimes including a Canvas F.A.Q. page or Canvas orientation module in your courses can prove helpful to on-boarding students (and teachers) at the start of a semester. Fortunately, there are handful of 'orientation' courses and modules that have been shared to Commons Public by fellow course designers and teachers from a wide range of schools and institutions. Definitely worth checking them out!