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This blog could also be a very interesting discussion for another time. What I would like to briefly cover is not what people's different backgrounds are, but more what they could be, and how it doesn't really matter. Canvas has now been taught to academics from all over my institution in all the different disciplines and sub-disciplines that that entails. The original Canvas Facilitators at my institution were PhD students from all over the University. What we do for out academic careers really has nothing to do with it. By training I am an archaeologist, I have worked in Egypt and visit museums all over the place for my research. In my studies I have had a bit of exposure to different technologies and without talking myself up I am competent at a number of them. That was probably part of the reason why I was offered a job to teach Canvas to others, my day job involves teaching and my skills included technology. I have had some emails recently of people saying that things are a bit too difficult or that they "don't understand this stuff". In particular I have had people saying that this guide on how to manage the lecture recordings is too difficult iframes (UoA Lecture Recordings) because it involves a little bit of copy and paste html. The second people see that they seem to switch off or dismiss it immediately. To be honest, I don't really know a great deal of html either, but I can figure it out if needed. That is the main skill that I see lacking in people who find these things too hard, they simply need to give it a go and try figure it out. These people are Academics from all disciplines. There are other people at the other end of the spectrum of course, who understand it and improve on it, which is great. So, with Canvas, it doesn't really matter what you do if Canvas or e-learning is not your main job, it can be learnt either way. It doesn't matter if you don't do computer science or use computers for much beyond documents and email. I see Canvas as an augmentation of my teaching skills. Does it have anything to do with archaeology? No of course not, but that doesn't mean I'm not willing to sit down and figure it out. So if Canvas is not your day job, that doesn't matter, it can be figured out with patience, willingness, and time. ... View more

Back in October I participated in the Paper Pumpkin challenge, which encouraged conversations around online marking: Paper Pumpkin - Moving marking online, the uphill battle. Five months on I thought it would be time for an update. Since then we have not had many assignments due as it was the Christmas/Summer break and Summer School, but at my institution we have trained several thousand academics and professional staff in the use of Canvas. I have briefly summed up some of my thoughts on that process here: Keep on keeping on. In the original post I talked about how great online marking is without all the bits of paper and the promise of quicker grading. Also, it is better for the environment due to less printing, and cheaper for the faculty and students for the same reason. Some staff have decided to give online only a go which is great, and the team I work with are doing all we can to make sure that that goes smoothly. As with all things, public (in this case staff) opinion is half the battle. Unfortunately not much has changed to sway the majority of the paper markers, although from more interaction with these people, some common themes have emerged as to why they don't want to do online marking: There is a generational gap - A lot (but not all) of those who have a problem with online marking are from the older generations. They could cite any of the reasons below, but they are more likely to have a problem with the concept. The same people likely struggle because they don't understand computers either, and we frequently have people not knowing what an internet browser or a "tab" is. Health reasons - Some complaints have been that screens hurt peoples eyes, or working on a computer is uncomfortable. While I can sympathize with these issues, there are a range of technologies available which can help with this. Tablets and laptops enable the use of a computer wherever suits you. Software such as f.lux: software to make your life better can adjust the brightness on your screen depending on the time of day. "Harden up" is something I wish I could say in these circumstances, but that doesn't really help the situation. Internet connectivity issues - Some people want to mark where there is no internet connection. This is a tough one. Submissions can be downloaded, marked, and then re-uploaded but this is a bit clunky. There isn't much more that can be done. Having said that, internet connections and wifi are increasingly common everywhere, and devices now often will be able to have their own modem or be able to tether to a device which does. It doesn't have all the options - This one is just an education issue. With tools such as Speedgrader and Grademark there isn't much you cannot do online now. One thing is the ability to just assign a letter grade without the student seeing the raw points, that would be a great help to encourage people to go online, this feature idea is suggesting that this option is added to Canvas: They just don't want to - Even if they were force to mark online, some people just don't want to and will print out all the submissions anyway. There really isn't much that can be done in this circumstance except to either revoke their ability to print (yes I am kidding here, mostly), or to continually encourage them to give it a go and demonstrate how easy it can make things. In the end all we can do is offer support to the staff that cite (consciously or unconsciously) cite one of the above reasons for not marking online. An official decree from those in charge would not work in my opinion, we need to use the carrot not the stick in these circumstances. Although over time I suspect that neither will be necessary and the transition will happen "naturally". Time will tell. ... View more

"¿Cuáles fueron los desafíos en la implementación de Canvas en su institución y cómo se superaron?" Me gustaría disculparme por primera vez como yo no hablo español y estoy usando un traductor en línea para esto. Esta web es una copia de uno que escribí en Inglés aquí Keep on keeping on, que explora algunos de los problemas que he encontrado como una parte del equipo para entrenar a la gente en Canvas en mi institución. También me he referido a algunas de estas cuestiones en estos blogs https://community.canvaslms.com/migration-blogpost/1433  https://community.canvaslms.com/migration-blogpost/1468 https://community.canvaslms.com/migration-blogpost/1314 https://community.canvaslms.com/migration-blogpost/1388. Espero que algunas personas encuentran esto útil . Hemos estado usando Canvas en una capacidad de formación y de prueba desde el año pasado, pero sólo se puso en marcha en enero de este año y lleno implementado para el inicio de un semestre en marzo. He sido parte del equipo de aprendizaje del sistema y la formación de personas desde casi el primer día, y en algunos casos estar en comités que eran un poco por encima de mi estación. A través de todo esto he estado tratando de mantenerse al día con mi tesis doctoral que está en Arqueología. Ha habido desafíos a lo largo de este proceso desde todos los lados, pero ninguno ha habido ninguna que no fueron finalmente resuelto por los equipos de apoyo o uno de los facilitadores. Ha sido un viaje maravillosamente frustrante, algunos días que quería dejar de fumar, otros que estaba emocionado por lo que ha pasando a mi alrededor. El primer reto fue que me di cuenta de algunas de las personas en roles de apoyo no entendieron o se dan cuenta de lo que los "botas sobre el terreno" maestros alias querer de Canvas. La otra cuestión que me di cuenta de inmediato era que íbamos a tener un reto generacional por delante de nosotros, con algunas de las personas más técnicamente no-competentes tendrían problemas con este nuevo software. He trabajado con estos equipos y comités y di mis opiniones ingenuas acerca de lo que pensé que debería hacerse, algunos comentarios se escucharon, algunos no lo eran. Las cosas se vean comprometidos entre las necesidades del sistema y las necesidades del profesorado. Las cosas se estaban hechas y las clases de prueba iban bien. Hemos comenzado la formación del personal en una variedad de maneras, y en su mayor parte se ha realizado correctamente, hemos tenido personas que toman el sistema con las dos manos y lo utilizan para enseñar cómo querían. Otros, no tanto. Algunos profesores simplemente querían saber lo que tenían que hacer, por lo que tuvieron que hacerlo, ¿cuánto tiempo se tardaría, y cómo se replican lo que siempre habían hecho en el nuevo sistema. En algunos de esos días que quería romper mi pelo. Entonces dejé de preocuparme. Nunca íbamos a conseguir cada uno de acuerdo con esto, y para ser sincero, no tenemos que, tuvimos que hacer funcionar el sistema, enseñar a la gente lo básico, y frente a cualquier problema como llegaron. La mayoría de las personas con un problema con el sistema eran de la generación de más edad, los que realmente no sabía lo que significaba un navegador de Internet o pestañas, y para aquellas personas a las que tuvo que cambiar el entrenamiento en consecuencia. Para otras personas que teníamos que probar y aminore su velocidad mientras corrían a través del sistema como un elefante en una cacharrería, haciendo todo lo que siempre había soñado, sin conocer los trucos del software o cómo usarlo. Silenciar las asignaciones antes de marcar es todavía algo estamos perforando en cabeza de la gente. Conseguir que todos los sistemas y trucos que los maestros quieren en Canvas era otra cuestión. El software Canvas es fantástica, pero no siempre será institucionalmente herramientas dependientes que necesitan ser hechas en casa. A veces no teníamos tiempo para una de estas solicitudes para ir a través de la comunidad, o sabía que esto era algo único para nosotros y nuestros sistemas. En estos casos, los desarrolladores funcionó milagros e hicieron un gran trabajo. En otros casos no eran características que ciertas áreas de la institución necesitan que otros no lo hicieron, éstos se discutieron, llevaron a cabo reuniones, las administraciones consultadas, y, finalmente, las ideas fueron puestos en la lista de adiciones o rechazada. El problema entonces fue diciendo a los maestros que necesitan esta adición que, o bien no iba a suceder o que sería un rato, y para tratar de encontrar una intermedia o solución permanente para ellos. Todo se trata de pensar en sus pies para resolver el problema, algo así como en el de Marte, pero sin la muerte potencial en Marte parte. Otras veces era sólo algo para hacer vida de las personas más fácil, que es donde estas guías de procedencia Creating a "button" oriented syllabus page iframes (UoA Lecture Recordings) Embedding a webpage in an assignment (iframes) Embedding a pdf in the rich content editor. Lo que era un poco doloroso fue cuando apareciste alguien éstas y que no quieren ya sea porque tomó demasiado tiempo o parecía demasiado complicado. Ninguno de los cuales es cierto, pero en su lugar podría estar trabajando en un artículo de revista o algo más. Sigo haciendo guías y las cosas a pesar de estas cuestiones , ya que hay algunas personas que usan estos recursos y están recibiendo muy buena retroalimentación acerca de ellos. Mi esperanza es que estas personas le ayudará a elevar el nivel que los estudiantes que esperar que aquellos que no quieran tendrá que hacerlo. Puedo ver algunas otras cuestiones que probablemente vayan a plantearse en los próximos meses , y voy a estar allí para ayudar a resolver estos cuando ellos vienen también. Sólo tiene que seguir continuando. Aún no se ha acabado. ... View more

I am a part of the team to train people in Canvas at my institution. I have also touched on some of the issues I mention below in these blogs You can lead a horse to water...  Seeing the digital world unfold Introducing Canvas to a new University - 5 things Paper Pumpkin - Moving marking online, the uphill battle . I hope that some people find this useful. We have been using Canvas in a training and trial capacity since last year, but it only went live in January this year and full implemented for the start of semester one in March. I have been a part of the team learning the system and training people since just about day one, and in some cases being on committees which were a bit above my station. Through all this I have been trying to keep up with my PhD which is in Archaeology. There have been challenges throughout this process from all sides, but none have been any that were not eventually figured out by the support teams or one of the facilitators. It has been a wonderfully frustrating journey, some days I wanted to quit, others I was excited about what has happening around me. The first challenge I realized was that some of the people in support roles did not understand or realize what the "boots on the ground" a.k.a. teachers would want from Canvas. The other issue I realized straight away was that we were going to have a generational challenge ahead of us, with some of the more technically un-proficient people would struggle with this new software. I worked with these teams and committees and gave my naive opinions about what I thought should be done, some comments were listened to, some were not. Things were compromised between the needs of the system and the wants of the teaching staff. Things were getting done and the trial classes were going well. We started training the staff in a variety of ways, and for the most part it was successful, we had people taking the system with both hands and using it to teach how they wanted. Others, not so much. Some teachers simply wanted to know what they had to do, why they had to do it, how long it would take, and how do they replicate what they had always done into the new system. On some of those days I wanted to tear my hair out. Then I stopped worrying. We were never going to get everyone on board with this, and to be honest we did not have to, we just had to get the system working, teach people the basics, and deal with any issues as they came. The majority of the people with a problem with the system were from the older generation, those who genuinely did not know what a internet browser or tabs meant, and for those people we had to shift the training accordingly. For other people we had to try and slow them down as they ran through the system like a bull in a china shop, doing everything they had always dreamed of, without knowing the tricks of the software or how to use it. Muting assignments before marking is still something we are drilling into peoples heads. Training sessions needed to be tailored for who we were talking to, often on the fly. Getting all the systems and tricks that teachers would want into Canvas was another issue. The Canvas software is fantastic, but there will always be institutionally dependent tools that need to be made in house. Sometimes we didn't have time for a feature request to go through the community, or knew that this was something unique to us and our systems. In these cases the IT developers worked miracles and did a great job. In other cases there were features that certain areas of the institution needed that others did not, these were discussed, meetings held, administrations consulted, and ultimately the ideas were put on the list of additions or rejected. The problem then was telling the teachers who needed this addition that it either wasn't going to happen or that it would be awhile, and to try and find a mid-term or permanent solution for them. It is all about thinking on your feet to solve the problem, kind of like on The Martian but without the potentially dying on Mars part. Other times it was just something to make peoples lives easier, which is where these guides came from Creating a "button" oriented syllabus page iframes (UoA Lecture Recordings) Embedding a webpage in an assignment (iframes) Embedding a pdf in the rich content editor. What was a bit heartbreaking was when you showed someone these and they didn't want to because it either took too much time or looked too complicated. Neither of which is true, but they could instead be working on a journal article or something else. I keep making guides and things in spite of these people, as there are some people who use these resources and are getting really great feedback about them. My hope is that these people will help to raise the standard that students expect that that those who don't want to will have to. I can see some other issues that will likely come up in the coming months, and I will be there to help solve these when they come up too. You just need to keep on keeping on. It's not over yet. ... View more

" What ways you use Canvas Free-for-Teacher? How does FFT inspire you to be creative in the ways you leverage Canvas?" There have been some great blogs about the benefit of free-for-teachers in Canvas, but for me the benefit of free-for-teachers somehwat echoes that of stefaniesanders​Free for Teachers: Training made easy.  The great thing is that it lets you try things in Canvas that your institution has perhaps not brought in yet or is not going to bring in. You can get ahead of the game in other words. All of the extra apps that are not available can then be used without risk and you can see what will be beneficial and what won't, which you can then use to formulate a business case for the addition of an app or feature to the main Canvas interface for the institution. Sometimes we get stalled by bureaucracy or caution, free-for-teachers lets you do your own thing, which can inform decisions and bring those potential upgrades and features into the fold. ... View more

This guide will go through the steps to embed and display a pdf document in the rich content editor. 1. Add your pdf by selecting "files" under "insert content into the page" on the top right of the page. If you are uploading a new file, click on "Choose file", then "upload" (Figure 1). Figure 1 2. If you don't like the name of the file that appears in the rich content editor (Figure 1), delete the text. Write what you would like (e.g. CLICK HERE). Highlight this text and click on your pdf which will be under "course files" under the "files" tab of "insert content into this page". This text is now a button to download that file. 3. At this stage clicking on the link will download the file. We want it to auto open. To do this highlight the link and click on "link to url" (Figure 2). Then select "auto-open the inline preview for this link" (Figure 3). Once this is done click "update link" (Figure 3). Figure 2 Figure 3 4. Finish making any other changes to your page and save the changes. Give it a minute to load and the pdf will appear in the rich content editor (Figure 4). Figure 4 ... View more

Building on from using iframes with Canvas iframes (UoA Lecture Recordings)​, I had been asked how to embed a section of a reading list within an assignment. At the University of Auckland we use Talis Aspire to manage our reading list. Within Talis you can creation subsections of the main reading list for a course which you can then add to modules. The challenge was how to embed one section of a reading list into an assignment description. One way to do this would be to creation a module for the assignment with the assignment and the reading list section it in, but that seemed a bit boring to me. Below is another way to do it using an iframe, it may seem round-about, but it works. This will be directly applicable to University of Auckland users, but hopefully some other users will find it helpful as well, as it could be applied to any webpage. For people not using it for University of Auckland reading lists, please go to step 3. 1. Add the section to a dummy module that you will not publish. For this to work you need to have associated a Talis Reading List with your course.      a. Add module      b. Add content to module (Figure 1)           i. Select external tool           ii. Select reading lists           iii. Click "add item"      c. Click on the new link, talis will open      d. Select which section you would like to use, and click "save" (Figure 2). Only that section will appear in Canvas. Figure 1 Figure 2 2. Using Google Chrome, right click on the Talis window within Canvas and select "view frame source". The source for the page will appear (Figure 3).      a. Around line 32 will be a link to the Talis page within Canvas (highlighted in figure 3). Copy this link into your browser, the link will change but only that section will load. Keep this page open. Figure 3 3. Create your assignment and then select the html view for the description (Figure 4). In the html view paste the following: <p><iframe style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" src="INSERT LINK HERE" width="100%" height="550"></iframe></p> Figure 4 4. Replace "INSERT LINK HERE" with the address from step 3 (it should like the one in figure 4). Then click "save". This should embed the Talis section into the assignment description (Figure 5) Figure 5 ... View more

I was first introduced to Canvas somewhat jet lagged on my way back from a conference in Europe, being told by my supervisor (whom I didn't know was on the flight) at 3am somewhere that we would be using it for the class starting the next day. In my jet lagged state I had the course running my the mid-morning, and then with a small revision I had it looking a bit better a few days later when I had caught up a bit, the result of which is here Creating a "button" oriented syllabus page. Our course was a part of the pre-release of about 10 courses, part of the advanced users group as we called ourselves, each from very different disciplines of the University, and me being the most junior person in the room. I did not have the benefit of the training the others had received before going it, but I soon caught up and was finding new ways to use Canvas. One of which resulted in a way to manage the lecture recording links that we use iframes (UoA Lecture Recordings). Before long, whether by nagging, luck, or skill, I was offered a part-time position as a Canvas Facilitator for the University, helping to train the staff at the University of Auckland in the use of Canvas. I ended up just focusing in the Faculty of Arts due to my PhD and teaching commitments. I have posted other blogs about some of the challenges I have encountered while doing this job; Paper Pumpkin - Moving marking online, the uphill battle​ and You can lead a horse to water...​, but for the most part the result of the training sessions have been interesting to see. What the other facilitators and myself are seeing is people taking the LMS on board and using it in new and innovative ways. Some people are playing more with the html editor, while others are salivating about all the ways they can improve their teaching styles. This is all in contrast to our old LMS, which while it was state-of-the-art when we got it many many years ago, is now tired and needed replacing. What is exciting is to see what people can do with Canvas and what they will continue to do with it as they are introduced to it, hopefully without the jet lag. ... View more

We are now well into teaching Canvas to all the staff in preparation for next year at my institution. In my Faculty, the overwhelming response has been positive to the switch to Canvas, with people getting very excited about what they will be able to do with their courses in Canvas. But, and yes you knew there was a "but" coming, this is not always the case. Some staff simply do not want to put any more effort into their courses than what they currently do, which is to upload a few pdf's and maybe some power-points and call it a day. This response mostly comes from tired and jaded staff, but also surprisingly from some people who you would assume would be excited. To them, the prospect of putting in a bit of extra time to set up their courses is unthinkable. I have tried to sell it to them as an investment of time, if they put it in now to make an awesome course, it can be copied over to the next time they teach it, but that line only works about half the time. Along with Canvas, my institution is introducing Talis Aspire to help manage our copyrighted content, which again brings a collective groan from those same staff. In one case, a staff member suggested that they may retire instead of deal with adding the copyright to all of their 30,000 images that they have. Whether or not they use all 30,000 images in their course I never did ascertain. I was a bit disheartened at some of these responses, I couldn't see why people would not want to make their courses a bit better, which is part of their jobs after all. While my initial response to these negative attitudes was that of disappointment, I have come to see the situation another way. The people who don't want to learn Canvas or put in any time at all, probably weren't doing it in the first place with our old LMS. I have done my job and tried to get them enthusiastic about Canvas and what it can do, but at the end of the day I can't do much more than that. All I can do is help those people who want it to make their courses as good as they can be. You can lead a horse to water... but you can't make it drink. ... View more

This document will go through the use of iframes and use them in the context of a way to manage the lecture recordings generated by the University of Auckland system. An iframe is a in-line frame which embeds something within a document. A way to embed iframes has been outlined here How do I embed iFrame videos using the Rich Content Editor?   This guide will show you how to create one from something which does not have a pre-made link. To enter an iframe enter the following in the HTML editor of a page in Canvas: <p><iframe style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" src="ENTERLINKHERE" width="100%" height="550"></iframe></p> The University of Auckland lecture recording system sends an email with five links: Streaming, high quality download, low quality download, full frame download, and audio download. While some people prefer just to past one of these as an external url into a module, another way to give access to all links is to create a page with the information and link to that in a module. The one I have created looks like this: I have found that the benefit of this page is that it keeps all the students (relatively) happy as it has all of the options available in one place. The iframe also keeps the student within the Canvas environment to view the video. The table with the links to the different download options are created in the rich content editor, for more information about the different buttons and their html codes see this guide Rich Content Editor HTML Cheatsheet In the html editor, enter the iframe and the link for the lecture stream, the finished code for the page shown above should look something like this (feel free to copy and paste it): <table style="border-color: black; height: 50px; width: 750px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" border="2"> <tbody> <tr> <td style="text-align: center;"><strong><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><a id="" class="" title="" href=" https://mediastore.auckland.ac.nz/2015/1155/ANTHRO206L01CANTHRO322L01C/D815519d76CC4C7F846AE26F610F650A/A201507210900.LTRD310145.m4v " target="">High quality download</a></span></strong></td> <td style="text-align: center;"><strong><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><a id="" class="" title="" href=" https://mediastore.auckland.ac.nz/2015/1155/ANTHRO206L01CANTHRO322L01C/D815519d76CC4C7F846AE26F610F650A/A201507210900.LTRD310145.mp3 " target="">Audio download</a></span></strong></td> <td style="text-align: center;"><strong><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><a id="" class="" title="" href=" https://mediastore.auckland.ac.nz/2015/1155/ANTHRO206L01CANTHRO322L01C/D815519dd6CC4C7F846AE26F610F650A/A201507210900.LTRD310145-slides.m4v " target="">Full frame download</a></span></strong></td> <td style="text-align: center;"><strong><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><a id="" class="" title="" href=" https://mediastore.auckland.ac.nz/2015/1155/ANTHRO206L01CANTHRO322L01C/D815519d76CC4C7F846AE26F610F650A/A201507210900.LTRD310145.mp4 " target="">Low quality download</a></span></strong></td> </tr> </tbody> </table> <p><iframe style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" src=" https://mediastore.auckland.ac.nz/2015/1155/ANTHRO206L01CANTHRO322L01C/D81dd19376CC4C7F846AE26F610F650A/A201507210900.LTRD310145.preview " width="100%" height="550"></iframe></p> Once this is set up once, you can copy and paste the html code into a new page (make sure it is in the html editor when you copy it over, name it for that lecture, copy and paste the links from the lecture recording email in and it is all done. I find it quicker to copy and paste the urls for each link into the html editor, but you could also edit the buttons in the table by highlighting the text and changing the associated link in the rich content editor view. This way student have all the options available to them. ... View more

As we all know, traditionally the marking of assignments has been on paper. At the beginning of the computer age when students wrote their assignments electronically, some teachers would take and mark electronic copies of their students work. This largely continued on with tracked changes in word documents and the like. With Canvas and other tools such as Turnitin teachers can receive all their assignments digitally and mark them online, and in the process reduce the amount of paper flying around, the clutter it causes in offices, and the hassle of the handing in/returning the paper assignments. Sounds great doesn't it? In theory, it is great. In practice, people have been slower at adopting it than would be expected (hoped). One of the main complaints is that screens are harder to read than paper. Also, people like to mark in places without internet and scribble all over their students work. With increasingly common access to cheap readable touch-screens, and the increasing number of places with wifi, a lot of these issues are disappearing. Speedgrader is a great tool for this, as is Turnitin's grademark. The two are very similar, with the exception that Speedgrader does not generate an originality report or talk to Turnitin well, which has resulted in our staff who want to mark online and use Turnitin choose to just use Turnitin in lieu of Speedgrader. What is seen is that once people move to online marking, they don't usually move back. Maybe it is a generational thing that results in some people being open to online marking more than others, however there are always exceptions which cause doubt on this hypothesis. What is seen is that as more people mark only electronically, their colleagues follow suit as the stigma or fear of it is removed by example. Maybe in a few years time we won't need a physical place for students to hand in assignments, and on that day we will all reclaim some of our office-space. ... View more

Canvas is being introduced to my home institution next year and I am part of the transition team. During our training sessions with staff we aim to show them how to import the basics of a course syllabus into Canvas from a word document or pdf, of whatever form it is currently in. As part of this I routinely show them a course I am running live in Canvas and have done some more "advanced" things with, to which the question is always "how can I do that?". This page aims to be a brief overview of how to make a easy "button" oriented syllabus page. The first thing to do is decide what you would like on your syllabus page. I like to keep it simple, with the lecturer and tutors names, and then a button linking to the content of each week, with finally an embedded pdf of the course handout that students receive in class, such as that shown below. Creating the "buttons" is the fun, but arguably most time consuming part of this process. There are websites such as Da Button Factory: online button maker which can be used to make nice looking buttons to save and load into Canvas like this one: Another way to do it is with Microsoft PowerPoint. By creating a slide which displays the layout of your button and saving it as a jpeg that you can import as a picture into Canvas. I have attached a template to this guide which you can use to make a button like the one below, all you need to do is add a picture and position it how you like. To add the buttons to Canvas I use a table to construct the page, which means that the different images are inserted in a table which keeps them aligned how I put them: Once you have the buttons aligned how you like, you can link them to whatever other part of Canvas or the internet. To send a button to an external website, highlight the button and click on "Link to url" in the rich content editor. This is great for sending people to your off-Canvas faculty page or other website. In the example shown above, each picture is a button which takes the student to the module for each week of the course. In each module is any resource that was assigned to the students for that week such as links to readings, readings questions, lecture recordings, assignments, or anything else of interest. To do this, simply highlight the picture in the rich content editor and select whatever you would like to link it to from the "Links" tab in the "Insert content into the page" window to the right of the screen. Once you click on what you would like to link the page to, it will flash once. Once this is done, select "Update syllabus" and the link should work. You can make a button to any content within Canvas in this way. You could make one for an assignment which you have on the home page front and center in the weeks leading up to the assignment due date, or you could have a button to a module of revision topics when the exam is close. If you are going to make short-term changes to your home page, make sure to save a copy of the original in an unpublished page, that way you can always get it back easily without having to re-create the page. Remember, any pictures you upload into Canvas will be available to be downloaded by students from the Files menu. If you would not like your buttons to be downloaded by students, but instead just viewed, you need to restrict the access to them. Information on how to do this can be found here: How do I restrict files and folders to students in Canvas? I hope this guide has been somewhat helpful to show you how to make a nice looking syllabus page which doesn't take too much time but looks impressive to your students and colleagues. If you have any questions please leave a comment or message me and I will get back to you. ... View more