Blog 8: Can We Talk About Canvas?

Happy Wednesday everyone! I hope you’re all having a great week, and for those of us who are starting the LAST 6 weeks of this semester, I BELIEVE IN YOU, YOU GOT THIS, YOU’RE MAGICAL, AND AMAZING. No lie. Only 2 more weeks (really 1!) till Thanksgiving and an ENTIRE week off!! I’ve never looked forward to Thanksgiving like this before y’all. This whole week I’ve just been EXHAUSTED. Is it because I don’t go to bed at good times? Probably, but I’ll blame it on literally anything else (where my night owls at?!). Who cares if I have super dark circles under my eyes???

Fun fact about me: I have a very serious caffeine problem! I had a cup of coffee on election night, and proceeded to pass out 30 minutes later. Promise it wasn’t decaf, don’t even own decaf anything!! I just have a serious problem!! I’m fine!! It’s fine!! I’m fine!! (not really, but we persevere).

Which is actually a perfect segway, because I have really had to persevere through this website called Canvas. All my friends with Google Classroom, UGH I envy you!! I would LOVE to have Google Classroom. I think it should be illegal for school districts to give their teachers Google accounts, but then not Gmail and Google Classrooms?? They all work together for a reason? Maybe? But whatever, districts don’t want to hear my opinions.

Now like I mentioned my Google Classroom friends, I’ll be talking all about our educational website in my district called Canvas, but stay for the fun stories about how awesome Canvas is (insert eye roll emoji). One of my team members I think phrased it perfectly. She asked me one day, “how the heck do you know how to do all of this?” and honestly my reaction was, “my summer job every year is teaching so I couldn’t this year because pandemic and I got bored so I spent the entire summer preparing for the inevitable”. I did 50+ PD hours, and just made a practice course in Canvas to try making so many different things to work on Canvas. (I was very bored y’all, quarantine was very lame for me).

For all my Canvas users my biggest advice I can give you is honestly trial and error, which I know isn’t the advice you want. Especially as teachers. We just want to know how to do it so we can get to it and check another thing of our checklist. But with Canvas, it’s not very user friendly as you’ve probably noticed. It doesn’t automatically save, and sometimes it likes to log us out when we are still working. But I promise the more you practice with it, the better we’ll all get at it! Then there is some consistency in how all our student Canvas classes look!

But let’s just start with the basic, a module. For us in 8th grade social studies we break down all our modules by week. So each week students are given a new module, which is then broken down even further day by day. That way if a student says “oh I was absent on November 11th”, well go check Canvas module for that week and find the day! I have seen other grades break their modules down by the 6 weeks. I think it just depends on how you want to organize your assignments. Having it weekly student can go find specific units, but then at the same time, by the 6 weeks also gives them an idea of what they will be doing for the whole 6 weeks! And it makes finding missing work super easy (in theory). But how you set up your module is really up to you and your team.

Once you have an idea that you like, well now you can actually start adding into your module! Now again, like I’ve said with Google, don’t be scared of all the options that you have! I know that I was my first year using Canvas. But I promise it’s not scary!!

Most of the items are self explanatory:

Text header is just simply a header. We use these to mark the days and break down between the warm ups, lesson and exit tickets. Since you can’t color code on Canvas I use the headers like dividers.

Quiz is just simply a quiz feature! Another piece of advice, don’t make quizzes on Canvas in the Quiz tab. Too complicated to get it on your module. Just make the quiz in the module where you want students to take it! I used to use this quiz feature for like warm ups (but then I got bombarded with 150 quizzes and quickly changed my mind! I’ll show y’all what I do now instead later!)

Discussion is again, just a discussion! These are awesome, especially for the beginning of the year! Or if you teach an all virtual class and getting students to unmute themselves is VERY difficult! ALL THE POSSIBILITIES!

Page is again, just a page! What I love about the pages is that it’s not an assignment. So it doesn’t pop up as something for me to grade on my to do list. So I use pages to give directions, and then warm ups and exit tickets!!

Assignments again are assignments! Something that you want students to turn in. A paper? A map? Want to give them a google slide template? Use an assignment! Anything you make as an assignment will pop up on your to do list to grade and the students to do list if they HAVE NOT completed it!

Now the last two options on your canvas module are the two scariest things in the world (not really, but actually really). External Tool and External URL. I think what makes them seem so scary is the external part of their name. But really, it just means that you want to use something outside of Canvas, but have the student access from within Canvas! Which. Consistency. It’s helpful. I find that the external tool is honestly the most helpful. Canvas already has certain websites built into it that work well with Canvas. They play nice together. Tools like Nearpod! And even Google slides! But the Google Slide integration needs to be it’s own blog post. Because yikes, she crazy. But using the External tool allows you to automatically upload or input from whatever tool!

Take Nearpod for example. It’s on our list of usual things we use in class (although we are trying PearDeck next week, will let y’all know how that goes!!). I can use the external tool, find Nearpod, log into my school Nearpod account, find whatever Nearpod I want the students to complete, and it will upload into Canvas automatically. All I have to choose is if I want the student paced or live class! No code needed because of the way it’s already built into Canvas! And then of course students can access again anytime they need as long as it’s set to student paced!

The external url again is the same kind of idea! If it’s a website that Canvas doesn’t have integrated into it’s system yet, you can still make it accessible to your students! Like Flipgrid! You can integrate Flipgrid directly into Canvas! So students can make their Flipgrid video in Canvas without ever having to leave Canvas.

You can do the same thing with Padlet! I love to use Padlets as exit tickets. Easy, simple for me to see student responses and there are lots of different ways for them to respond to a Padlet! Well I can copy my link from my Padlet, and paste it in the External URL option and boom! It’s integrated! Students can respond in Canvas and I’ll see their responses on my end of the Padlet!

For warm ups I like to use this tool called Poll Everywhere, shout out to Kristin for showing me this!! Again, it’s easier to see students responses in real time, kind of like Padlet, and it’s easy for students to log into! But like Padlet, you can directly integrate it into Canvas so students don’t even have to open a new tab to complete their warm ups!

As I tell my students, okay we’re gonna take a pause here! Next week I’ll still be talking all things Canvas, and looking into more of the external tools! Like Google! Which. I have emotions about. You’ll see. Trust me. You’ll see.

I hope that you have an amazing rest of your week. I hope that your students turn in work. I hope they do well and they learn lots but I hope you take the time to rest and relax. I was leaving work the other day, and it was like 5? 5:15? And I said hello to someone who was leaving at the same time I was and they said, “I am NEVER here this late!!” and I just responded saying, “really?? I’m always here this late, usually later”. Remember to take time for yourself, I know that I am trying to remember that. Will it happen? Probably not, too many things to do. But be good to yourself, you’re trying your best. I know you are.

- Bay :-)