November 2016 – Page 2 – Teaching with Canvas

Think Before You Link: Creating a Canvas URL

Today I want to write about something that may look small, but it is actually really important: how to create your own custom URLs to counteract the disposable course approach of the LMS. If your school is like mine, the LMS is going to create a new course space for you semester after semester, even when the course is the same. Instead of removing the current students and loading in the new students, there is going to be a completely new course space: an empty space, on the assumption that nothing you have from last semester is worth keeping (sad, isn’t it?). Sure, you can copy your course content over to the new space, but it’s a new course, with new URLs, as if your old course never even existed. Disjointed, disconnected. Like so much of the school experience. In this way, as in so many other ways too, the LMS is a tool for school administrators, not for instructors, and it does not care about giving you any course space stability.

But if you create your own URL and then point it to your course, you can then repoint the URL each semester. Your course URL can remain the same, even if Canvas insists on throwing out your course and creating a new one every semester.

So, for example, one of the first things I did as a Canvas user at my school was to create URLs for the two courses that I teach every semester; they are totally open courses, so go ahead and click and see:
Myth.MythFolklore.net for Mythology and Folklore
India.MythFolklore.net for Indian Epics

You’ll see those are both subdomains on my MythFolklore.net, which is a domain name I own and control (I keep my “omnifeed” on display there as my personal homepage). All I had to do was create the two subdomains (that takes about a minute), and then create a little redirect file (that takes about another minute). All done.

Those are clickable links, easy to type, and easy to share. You can see how they redirect here:

Myth.MythFolklore.net resolves to:
https://canvas.ou.edu/courses/23183/wiki

India.MythFolklore.net resolves to:
https://canvas.ou.edu/courses/19837/wiki

Those are my Canvas courses for Fall 2016, code names “23183” and “19837” (I have no idea where those numbers come from; they just are what they are). If you are curious why I redirect to the wiki homepage for each course, you can find out all about that here: Blogger Announcements as Canvas Homepage.

My Spring 2017 course spaces already exist in Canvas: the Myth course is going to have the magic number 31878, and the India course is going to have the magic number 31889. So, after the Fall semester is over, I will go into my MythFolklore.net control panel and update the redirect file, changing the magic number of the Fall edition to the magic number of the Spring edition. That will take me all of one minute to do. Presto: my old URLs will resolve to the Spring 2017 web space for each course.

As a result, my custom URLs will continue to work anywhere and everywhere that I have shared them, semester after semester, always taking people to the current version of each course. Since I don’t have any content in my courses, that solution is good enough for me; I don’t need to share more than just the basic URL.

IMPORTANT: If you are putting actual content in your Canvas courses, I would strongly urge you to think about creating a freestanding resource site instead of dealing with the nightmare of all your course content having new URLs every semester; you can read more about that here: Open Content: Resources, not Courses. This URL, for example — Canvas.MythFolklore.net — goes to a Canvas space I have created as a permanent content resource (a demonstration course for growth mindset and live content), not as a disposable course.

For this little hack to work, you need to be able to create custom URLs in a space you control. At my school, we are so lucky to have Reclaim Hosting’s Domain of One’s Own program, branded OUCreate, which gives faculty, staff, and students their own web space.

You can get a very inexpensive domain of your own, or you can use a create.edu subdomain of your own for free. You can host your own blog (like the blog you are reading right now), build websites and wikis, and you can also run database-driven applications, etc. I hope every OU faculty member will consider making use of OUCreate, even if it is just to give yourself some URL stability in a world of Canvas chaos!

So, think before you link! By creating your own custom URLs, you can give your Canvas courses a lasting identity, instead of a disposable one.

I have control.

Crossposted at OU Canvas Community.

Writing yesterday. Writing today.

Yesterday. And today. There are not too many moments in life that witness a rupture in a single day. And most of those moments are more private, personal ruptures. Not a collective one like this. Last night before going to bed, I saw Audrey Watters wrote about being in mourning, and that is indeed what it feels like, the mourning of an unexpected loss.

As it happens, I used this blog yesterday to write about non-conformity. Canvas LMS is one small example of the triumph of “conformism,” and I argue that even in the face of pressure to conform, we should be nonconformists, and we should encourage in every way our students’ creative independence and nonconformity also.

I don’t take that approach to teaching because it effective (although I think it is), or because it is data-driven or research-based. I take that approach to teaching because it reflects my personal values, which are grounded in freedom. Not just the freedom of the majority, but of the minorities. Of the ultimate minority: the individual. And certainly not the freedom of the majority to make everybody else conform.

I am not optimistic for what the next few years will bring, but I will continue to promote the values of freedom, choice, creativity, diversity, and nonconformity in my classes. I will teach about the past not because I am driven by a nostalgic wish to return to that past but because I value the voices of the past. The voices of creative individuals, anonymous though they were. The fearless storytellers who used the power of words to speak their own truths. So that we might learn to do the same.

I teach writing. That was true yesterday. And that is true today.

I can shake off everything as I write:
my sorrows disappear;
my courage is reborn.
— Anne Frank

Engagement, Creativity, and Non-Conformity: Getting ready for ILED

I’m excited about the ILED Studio session today: Helping Learners Stay Engaged.

In preparation for that, I’m going to just collect some thoughts (and links) here, specifically thoughts about why I think the LMS is such a dire space for student engagement, and why other online spaces seem to me so much better. These are just rambling thoughts; I’m not going to try to organize… I just want to have some ideas bouncing around in my head for the session when it starts at 1PM my time.

Lisa Lane’s posts on Canvas and cognitive UNDER-load. Lisa has written some really important blog posts about how Canvas is promoting a kind of mindless simplicity in the name of “decreasing cognitive overload” which actually ends up reducing opportunities for student learning. That is my feeling also; the boring sameness of Canvas is a mindkiller in my opinion; the beginning of engagement is some kind of stimulation… and Canvas is about as unstimulating as a space can be. Here are some of Lisa’s posts:
The LMS and the End of Information Literacy
The Pedagogy of Canvas
Complexity over simplicity in online classes

Learning In The Age Of Digital Distraction (NPR). Very useful NPR interview with Adam Gazzaley, coauthor of The Distracted Mind: Ancient Brains in a High Tech World. This looks like a good book, less simplistic and jingoistic than others of that ilk (like the self-aggrandizing angst of Nicholas Carr and Sherry Turkle).

At the same time… I am really tired of the demonizing of digital distractions. The bigger and more dangerous distractions that my students face are not digital eye candy on their screens. Instead, the real danger is the disjointedness of the academic experience and the lack of flow. And it’s not just students. Both students and faculty alike are are overwhelmed with disconnected tasks, and they have very little control over the content of those tasks and the time in which to complete them (see this piece on faculty shadow work in IHE just today). Students suffer from this more than faculty, yes, but we are all suffering, which is good, in a sense. Empathy.

So, I think any discussion of engagement would do well to think about not just on the minimizing of distraction (although that is important), and on the increasing of focus (although that is important too), but the more sublime and inspiring idea of FLOW. I reread Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s Flow this summer, and that is a book that always has a big impact on me: Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. Here is a graphic that conveys some of the ideas you will find in Flow, you can see many variations of this graphic online; I found this one in an article on happiness, flow, and leadership:

Another of Csikszentmihalyi’s research areas is creativity, although I have yet to read his creativity book: Creativity: The Psychology of Discovery and Invention. I need to read that book!

Of course, Csikszentmihalyi talks a lot about creators and the creative process in Flow, and that is one of my main assumptions in promoting engagement among students: the experience of CREATING something is one of the most highly engaging learning experiences that you can have, and the lack of emphasis on creativity and creative production is a huge problem in our schools.

I truly believe that if you give students the opportunity to create and then to share the things that they create, they will engage. It is not a guarantee of engagement, but it is a better assumption than anything else I see in school. Creativity is better than chasing grades; grades promote superficial, passive engagement. Creativity is better than rote learning; rote learning is boring. Creativity is better than rigor; creativity thrives on uncertainty and experimentation, where process trumps product, becoming not being, the opposite of rigor mortis.

In addition to invoking creative, I would also like to invoke NONCONFORMITY, and this wide-ranging article from Harvard Business Review that, as often, is highly relevant to education: Let your Workers Rebel by Francesca Gino. The tag line: “Employee engagement is a problem. To fix it, encourage your workers to break rules and be themselves. We’ll show you who does it right and how you can too.”

Here are the headings and subheadings from the article to give you a sense of the territory that it covers:

WHY CONFORMITY IS SO PREVALENT
We fall prey to social pressure.
We become too comfortable with the status quo.
We interpret information in a self-serving manner.
PROMOTING CONSTRUCTIVE NONCONFORMITY
1. GIVE EMPLOYEES OPPORTUNITIES TO BE THEMSELVES
Encourage employees to reflect on what makes them feel authentic.
Tell employees what job needs to be done rather than how to do it.
Let employees solve problems on their own.
Let employees define their missions.
2. ENCOURAGE EMPLOYEES TO BRING OUT THEIR SIGNATURE STRENGTHS
Give employees opportunities to identify their strengths.
Tailor jobs to employees’ strengths.
3. QUESTION THE STATUS QUO, AND ENCOURAGE EMPLOYEES TO DO THE SAME
Ask “Why?” and “What if?”
Stress that the company is not perfect.
Excel at the basics.
4. CREATE CHALLENGING EXPERIENCES
Maximize variety.
Continually inject novelty into work.
Identify opportunities for personal learning and growth.
Give employees responsibility and accountability.
5. FOSTER BROADER PERSPECTIVES
Create opportunities for employees to view problems from multiple angles.
Use language that reduces self-serving bias.
Hire people with diverse perspectives.
6. VOICE AND ENCOURAGE DISSENTING VIEWS
Look for disconfirming evidence.
Create dissent by default.
Identify courageous dissenters.
STRIKING THE RIGHT BALANCE

… see what I mean about relevance to education? Just as this is a manifesto for nonconformity, I would also say it is a manifesto for engagement too!

So, to get back to Canvas: the design of the system is all about conformity. And to that I say: we need to rebel! The real engagement killer is not confusion but BOREDOM. We do not need conformity; instead, we need constructive nonconformity.

So, that is where I will leave my brainstorming for now. I am looking forward to the ILED session later today, and will post about the session here tomorrow. 🙂

Crossposted at OU Canvas Community.

Student Tech Support for Canvas

This is a post following up on the Student Voices post, where I shared the results of the survey I conducted in Week 8 asking students for feedback about Canvas: Student Voices about Canvas. In this post, I’ll explain how I used those results to offer some more tech support for students, based on what I noticed in their comments. And here’s something cool: at the bottom of this post, you can see the live stream of posts from my students’ blogs about their use of Canvas. (The power of Inoreader and iframe at work!)

Meanwhile, here is the support I’m using right now for Canvas:

Canvas Tech Tips. The main way I do tech support in my classes is by offering extra-credit Tech Tips that students can use to learn more about the technology we are using in class. The most popular tips are the ones for customizing their blogs, but I also offer tips on other tools, and after the midterm survey I realized that I needed some tips for Canvas. Here are the four tips I decided to write up:

Canvas Mobile App. Based on the limited number of students who reported using the mobile app, I wrote up a tip about that. Although I don’t use a mobile device myself, the students do, and so I wanted to make sure they knew there is a Canvas mobile app and, based on what I’ve heard, Canvas’s commitment to mobile was a big plus in their adoption at my school.
Canvas Calendar. This is the Canvas feature that is the most important for my classes, and I really hope students will take advantage of the ability to synch the Canvas calendar with any other calendar the students might be using like Outlook, Google, etc. A couple of students mentioned that in their comments, but my guess is that most students had not explored that option.
Canvas Notifications. Although I have mixed feelings myself about how Canvas handles course communications (more on that in a later post), it is still crucial that each user configure their notifications. I could tell from some of the student comments on the survey that not everybody had done that, so this tip is meant to encourage students to explore the notification options to see what will work best for them.
Canvas Profile. Admittedly, this was not something that came up in the survey, but I wanted to be sure to include it also because of one of my favorite Canvas features: unlike in D2L, students can choose their Canvas display name! So, for the many students who do not use their first name of record (because they use a nickname or their middle name or some other name of their own choosing), Canvas allows them to set up that display name. In this tip I encourage students to complete their Canvas profile and I also alert them to the display name option.

In addition to these tips, I also put some Canvas tutorial videos in the sidebar of the Announcements blog which is my Canvas homepage, as you can see in this screenshot:

Because students write up a quick blog post when they complete a tech tip, that gives me some additional feedback about their technology use. My feed reader, Inoreader (I LOVE INOREADER), allows me to assign rules automatically to incoming posts based on keywords, and I can then syndicate those results in a new feed, so here is a live stream of student blog posts which mention Canvas! More student voices, and more feedback — direct and indirect — that I can learn from as I try to improve my Canvas support next semester; it’s easier to read outside the confines of this blog post: Canvas Post Stream.

Crossposted at OU Canvas Community.

Blog Index / November 6, 2016

I’ve been blogging in this new space for two weeks now, and I am really happy for how that is going. It has not accomplished its main goal yet — I’m really hoping we will see a lively OU Canvas Community in the Canvas Community space, and that has not happened… yet — but it has been a good space for “thinking out loud” about teaching, and it was especially useful as a space to have available during #OpenEd16 last week. My goal is to blog every day during the week, and then on the weekend I’ll do up an index post, trying to sort things out and keep track of how the posts are accumulating. So, this is my first index post, and below are the blog posts I’ve published in these past two weeks, sorted into general categories:

Canvas and Openness

Open Content: Resources, not Courses: a warning about the dangers of putting content into LMS course spaces.
Canvas for Open Syllabuses: I think promotion of open syllabuses should be a top priority at my school.
Go Open with Canvas: Canvas, until D2L, has some open options, which is my main interest in our switch from D2L to Canvas.

My Canvas Announcements Blog

Maati Baani in my Canvas Homepage: Sharing videos with students via my Canvas announcements blog.
New Countdown Widget on Homepage: I created a new “__ days left in the semester” widget for my Canvas announcements blog.
The Power of Random Cats: Promoting growth mindset with random cats in my Canvas announcements blog.

Posts about Students

Student Voices about Canvas: results of my Fall 2016 midsemester student survey.
Time Management Brainstorms: Follow-up to an ILED studio session on helping students with time management.

Posts about Teachers

How Instructors (Don’t) Use the LMS: My thoughts on the new Blackboard study demonstrating limited (VERY) limited use of LMS features by instructors.
Connectedness: A grateful response to Jesse Stommel’s blog post about Creative Online Educators.

And here’s one of the cats from this week’s posts: this blog has been a good step forward for me! 🙂

Standing still is not growth. Take a step forward.

Crossposted at OU Canvas Community.

Student Voices about Canvas

I really want to applaud Adam Croom’s post on student voices at #OpenEd16: Searching for Student Voices at #OpenEd16.

I agree: when it comes to teaching and learning, the students are the ones we need to be listening to. As an adjunct, I don’t get to go to conferences, and that doesn’t really impair my work as an educator: I can live without conferences. That is not a problem.

But without student voices? Without student feedback? Without ideas and inspiration from my students? No way. I could never manage to do my job without that stimulation and support.

At the end of his post, Adam says, “Let’s stop treating them like lower tier citizens of our community and let’s treat them like equals. Because they deserve it. Let’s recognize how we are minimizing their voice in our conversations. And then let’s fix it.”

YES!

What’s great is that there are so many easy fixes. And I really mean that: easy fixes. The students have lots to say; all we need to do is to create spaces where they can share their thoughts with us so that we can listen… and act on what we learn.

Since this is my Canvas-related blog, I’ll share something here that I did a few weeks ago: I asked my students about their use of Canvas. I was surprised (really surprised, in fact) that there was no surveying of either faculty or students about our use of Canvas so far this semester; it’s a new system, and we all have lots to learn and lots to say about what we are learning. So, when I found out there were no surveys planned, I added an extra survey to my regular mid-semester review week. It’s not rocket science; I created a Google Form, and asked students to complete it. Of the 78 students in my classes, 75 filled out the survey, and most of them provided comments of some kind on the open-ended questions. You can see the results here: Canvas Survey: Week 8, Fall 2016.

The best part of the survey was when I asked them what advice they would give to other students using Canvas and also what advice they would give to instructors. Just as a general rule, this seems to me a very powerful way to solicit feedback from students. Yes, you can ask them to evaluate something (Canvas, a book, a course, etc.), but it is even more useful if you ask them to give advice to someone else (what advice would you give to someone using Canvas, someone reading this book, someone taking this course, etc.). When you pose the question in that way, so that it is both altruistic and also useful, students have so much good advice to offer!

Below, I’ve pasted in the what they offered as advice to other students and to instructors using Canvas. That can be useful perhaps not just to students and instructors at my school, but also elsewhere. And this is just what I garnered from a simple survey completed by 75 students. Just think how much more we might have learned by asking the advice of all the students who are our Canvas pioneers this semester! You can see more responses from the students to other questions (both ratings and open-ended) at the blog post: Canvas Survey: Week 8, Fall 2016.

There is all kinds of wisdom here… my favorite: Don’t get angry with the computer. 🙂

What advice would you give to INSTRUCTORS who are setting up a Canvas course?

Make the assignments portion easier to navagate
Just don’t use it.
I don’t really know, since this is my first and only class with it.
I am someone who hates change and is bad with technology so I was super stressed at the beginning of the semester when I was trying to figure it out. I would suggest having the instructor give a detailed explanation of how to find things and submit things since most students are very used to how D2L works.
Having all the assignments available to work ahead is a nice luxury.
Learn from Laura Gibbs! She has this Canvas thing down.
I would just make sure you know how to use Canvas so that you can better help your students understand.
Go all out and use the inbox systems.
Use the Notification feature
Keep the course as organized as possible, and try to send daily announcements if you can. Also keep the grades updated.
Everything Dr. Gibbs has done thus far I have enjoyed and preferred over d2l.
Make it as easy on the students as possible. The transition for most upper classmen has not been easy. Tell the students the cool new features they might not be aware of. The students have not had the training the professors should of had.
Updates can get lost easily, I like when teachers send messages to your inbox.
Put assignments on the calendar as soon as possible.
Input all class events at the beginning of the semester so it’s easy to see what students have coming up
There are a lot of opportunities on Canvas and they should fully take advantage of them.
only set up certain features that needed, don’t need too many categories
Be mindful, it’s the glitch-iest thing in the world. Make it as simple as you can.
Use every aspect of Canvas in order to really help out students.
Try to simplify things as much as possible. Having a lot of different moving parts in your class on Canvas can get wildly confusing and sometimes students can’t find certain things.
Use the modules page for documents so that students can see a preview before downloading.
I haven’t had any issues understanding Canvas so nothing really. Seems pretty simple.
Use the grade book feature, it really helps see where we are at in the course.
Just update it regularly when there’s new material.
set a picture on the main page
To make sure you know what you’re doing before you open it up to your class because if you don’t know and I don’t know, its going to be a rough semester.
Keep it simple, but don’t be afraid to make it your own as well. It seems like there’s a lot of freedom within Canvas setup for teachers to customize their online environment for students.
Posting things to “Modules” and “files” gets confusing so I would only choose one to use.
Make sure there feedback responses (grades, announcements, files) are categorized and organized efficiently; don’t split up stuff and make it hard for students to find.
Help the students learn it. Laura was really great at helping us learn.
make sure you get people to get the automatic emails sent everytime something happens on canvas
use it rather than D2L
Make the calendar as filled out as possible.
Please adjust the settings of the modules to load the current week at the top. My instructor did this a few weeks into the semester for this course (MLLL-4993) and it has made a great deal of difference in getting to the modules I need quickly and efficiently. We’re covering a lot of material, and I like that the material we are finished with is at the bottom of the page.
Make it as organized as possible! My other class is not completely organized so some readings are in random spots under the files tab.
Show your class what areas of canvas they need to be familiar with and show them how to use it.
Post on the announcements often.
Keep in mind that students are still learning and getting used to this new platform so try to make your content and assignments as easily accessible as possible.
make sure you have the files that you need published so that the class can actually access them.
Include a tutorial for how you yourself set up the class, as I feel that it can be varied.
Please have clear instructions in the assignment tab if you won’t be making an announcement about the assignment.
I think the main issue I’ve noticed in my classes is making sure content is being published for students to see. I don’t know how it looks on the instructor’s end, but I just got the impression that some seemed to think they had published something but they really hadn’t. So maybe just making sure that when you publish something, check to see that it is marked published. Or you could make an announcement that something was published and if it cannot be seen to notify you.
Knowledge of where the assignments or pages that we need are.
Learn how to use it…
To make sure everything is nicely organized. Cause canvas already has that set up for you.
Utilize the calendar, make sure everything opens once you upload it, delete the sections you are not using so that we know where to find things and so we don’t have to click through 20 options to find the syllabus.
My instructor for this class is much more familiar with various tips and tricks for Canvas than my other instructors are, and it shows. If all instructors would take the time to get to know all the features and how to apply them to their classes, I think it would be a more efficient experience for everyone.
I’d suggest specifying in the syllabus WHERE on canvas you will post certain documents (i.e., readings, things to print, assignments etc).
Try not to use too many folders – sometimes I can’t find a file because it’s filed away in multiple folders or in a different tab, etc. Also, I don’t like when instructors send messages through canvass; I prefer an email or an announcement.
Use the modules as a week by week guide for what’s going on in the class. Files can be separated by lecture, exam study guide, etc.
Make use of the calendar and syllabus sections. Make sure your TAs have access and your students know how to submit files.
Do not use canvas as the sole way of contacting students. Use email for important things that need to be seen ASAP
Please utilize the module tool for grouping content. It makes the canvas page so much easier to navigate.
I would say to use the calendar as much as possible so students know what is coming and what to expect.
Please have instructions for each individual assignment on the assignment’s page itself so that it’s easier to find and I don’t have to search for them elsewhere.
Try to make things simple. It would be nice if all the tabs led to the same type material.
Organization of course material is key, and I wish it was clearer what was under each tab
Don’t set up to many side tabs to separate out the class.
Keep it as simple as possible.
Get together and choose where you want to put your handouts, lectures, etc
Try to make tabs to separate things such as assignments, powerpoint, syllabus, action center etc.

What advice would you give to STUDENTS who are using Canvas?

Just check it everyday
It’s hard to learn how to use it.
Just be patient and take time to go through and look at and learn everything.
Don’t stress too much because it really is not that bad. Take a day to just click on everything and see what all the links do/how to find your assignments. Don’t wait until you need to submit something because that will make it a lot more stressful.
Make sure to keep up with your assignments using the calendar.
Give it time, it will grow on you.
Take some time to navigate it and learn all the features.
Look at it and play around with the tools.
Download the app.
Explore it before the class starts so you know how to use it
Make sure that you keep up with the assignments and check the calendar frequently.
Explore and mess around with it for a couple of days to get familiar with it all before classes start and you arrive confused.
Just have to play with it to understand it better…. but who has time to learn an entirely new system???
Check grades frequently and always check deadlines.
Make sure you check the calendar everyday for your assignments and due dates.
Utilize the calendar and to-do list
It’s easy to navigate, there’s multiple ways to get to the different sections.
play around with it at first and become familiar with it in the first few week of class
Prepare yourself, it’s going to take a while to complete an assignment.
Click everything. Find out how it works. Download the app
Mess around with it for a while before you have to start using it in class. It’s a really great tool, but can take a while to get used to.
Contact professors directly through your email instead of the inbox on Canvas.
Just look around and get familiar with it and it’s truly not complicated.
Download the app and turn notifications on. It’ll tell you if your teacher has sent any messages.
Learn to use it or get left behind.
use the calendar
Spend time figuring everything out
Check your notification settings to set your preferences. You can get notified about almost anything on Canvas. Also, the grade estimation feature is pretty cool.
Take advantage of the To Do list that pop up if you want to remember to turn in homework.
Keep playing with it .
utilize the calendar
check calendar
Make it your homepage
There is a total number of points feature at the bottom of the gradebook that automatically calculates your grade as you progress. It’s helpful, take note of it early. (It actually took me a while to scroll to the very bottom and notice it)
Utilize the calendar!
Don’t be afraid of changes!
Turn on the alerts for canvas and reminders.
Take advantage of the calendar.
Don’t use it on your phone or tablet.
Make sure to check it frequently or set up the notifications options so that you would know.
Be willing to look and explore.
Be sure to constantly be checking your announcements! They are usually full of reminders and assignment information that can be helpful.
You should still check it frequently as you did in D2L. It may seem like a lot of new information to learn how to navigate, but it really is quite simple so don’t let it intimidate you.
Good luck. Don’t get angry with the computer
Use the calendar to your advantage
Make use of all of the features.
Make sure you check the announcement section. Also don’t mute OU Canvas emails. This is where all the teachers announcements come from.
It is pretty user friendly… just ask if you have a problem.
I didn’t pay attention to the calendar feature until late in the game, so I missed out on how handy it is for quite a while. It’s a good idea to take a little bit of time at the beginning of the year, before homework gets crazy, just to get familiar with all Canvas has to offer.
Really communicate with your instructor and your classmates about how to navigate the class on Canvas.
Download the app, too!
Explore a lot because professors don’t know how to use it yet and are still figuring it out and may have files/documents in odd places.
I mean, just do your thing. You’re digital natives, right?
set up the mobile alerts.
You can connect the canvas calendar to google calendar or the iphone/android calendar by importing the .ics file. It’s super easy and you won’t forget about deadlines that way.
Pay attention to the calendar and use what is provided to help you learn
UI is really easy to navigate. It’s basically D2L with a different look.
Get use to it.
Spend a few minutes clicking around each of your classes to see what is where
Do the tutorials
Give it time. Sit down and find out where everything is at the beginning of the course so that you don’t miss something important.
try playing around with it at first, and add all you stuff to the calendar

And, while the growth mindset cats are not able to create surveys with Google Forms, they can probe and poke! It’s how we learn. 🙂

In order to learn,
we must probe and poke.

Crossposted at OU Canvas Community.

Open Content: Resources, not Courses

Yesterday I wrote about Open Syllabuses in Canvas, and I am a true believer: I would rate open syllabuses as my single biggest goal for Canvas at OU and, if anybody wants my opinion (ha ha), I would rate the number of open syllabuses in our Canvas system as a metric of success. For people who want metrics.

But content in the LMS: yikes, no. A thousand times no. I would never … let’s be clear: NEVER … recommend that anyone put any content in the LMS. There are so many better options! That is just my opinion, though, and I know that others feel differently. Canvas, unlike D2L, does allow for open content, and it even allows you to create persistent content on the Internet. That’s all very different from what D2L offered to us before.

For me, being able to get massive quantities of content online quickly and easily is the key, so I prefer to use blogs. That might seem weird, but it works great for me: blogs are very quick, they have good auto-navigation with labels, and they are linkable, searchable, scalable, and durable. The complete (and massive) UnTextbook for Myth-Folklore is a blog, the evolving (and also massive) Freebookapalooza library of free books online is a blog, and so on. That’s a solution I like, and there are so many other great solutions, especially now with OU’s Create.ou.edu project (see more about that below).

The traditional LMS, on the other hand, is a terrible solution for content. Totally aside from the specifics of each system, the overall purpose of the LMS defeats the content: the LMS is built to support courses which disappear at the end of a semester. At the end of each semester, what happens? Students — gone. Content — closed. And links — broken.

But, you say, I can extend the closing date of my course! Sure, you can do that. But what are you going to do when you offer the course again, with a new course space in the LMS filled with a new cohort of students? You are going to copy the content over — which is a disaster for sustainable, durable, shareable content. You don’t want multiple copies of content floating around. Instead, you want a stable location for evolving content where you can use, re-use, and improve course content over multiple classes and multiple semesters.

You need content as a lasting RESOURCE, not content that lives and dies with each expiring, self-destructing course iteration.

And Canvas, thank goodness, gives faculty one possible solution to this problem. Just like D2L, Canvas will automatically generate new course spaces for you every semester, but unlike D2L, with Canvas you can create your own spaces too. You don’t have to ask for an admin to do that; you can do it yourself. So, with just one click you can generate a Canvas space to use as an open, linkable, lasting resource that persists from semester to semester.

Here’s an example: this summer I created a Canvas course that I filled up with content, and you can see that here: Canvas.MythFolklore.net. It’s actually a two-fold experiment: it is a resource for Growth Mindset materials, and also a resource for live content strategies (embedding, javascripts, etc.). I’m personally not interested in any of the Canvas content management features like Modules, etc., but I could use those content management features if I wanted, just like when building a course.

So, when you see your Canvas course space automatically generated for you, don’t just leap into putting the content there. Step back and take a moment to ponder and plan: you have options!

And SPEAKING OF OPTIONS . . .

You should definitely check out an amazing option that goes far beyond what Canvas could ever make possible: CREATE.OU.EDU. For serious content development, you need a domain of your own. And Create.ou.edu awaits you. 🙂

Find your own path!

Crossposted at OU Canvas Community.

Canvas for Open Syllabuses

As promised, here is another post about the power of Canvas for open, following up on yesterday’s post: Go Open with Canvas. Today I want to focus on OPEN SYLLABUSES.

It’s November, so enrollment for Spring semester is happening right now on my campus, and the students are busily enrolling in classes… without being able to see the syllabuses for those classes. The Faculty Handbook states that faculty must post a syllabus in the LMS. In D2L, alas, that means the syllabuses are closed; there is no open option for syllabuses or for any course content in D2L.

So, instead of enrolling in classes based on the actual content of the classes, students are making choices based on other factors: word of mouth (which is useful, but only so far as it goes), RateMyProfessors.com and similar sites (again, useful, but only so far as it goes), blurbs in the course catalog (brief, generic, and often so out of date as to be worthless)… but they are not using the most important source of information: the syllabus which actually describes the course.

Students NEED to see the syllabus. They need to know what content the course covers and what they can expect to learn. They need to see the required materials, including the cost of those materials. They need to learn something about the instructor’s philosophy of teaching. And, yes, they need to see how grading works in the class (but about grading, I say: #TTOG… more here: Grading.MythFolklore.net).

And they need to know all of that not just after they enroll, but before they enroll. Otherwise, how are they going to make good enrollment decisions?

I’m an LMS minimalist, so I don’t use the LMS to conduct my course, but I am very glad that Canvas can allow us to share syllabuses with prospective students in the open. Canvas even allows faculty members to make the syllabus for a course public even if they decide to keep the rest of the course private:

I’ve always kept my syllabuses and course materials public, so when I started using Canvas this semester, I just posted a link in my Canvas syllabus pages to send students to the relevant materials online, as you can see here: Indian Epics Syllabus and here: Myth-Folklore Syllabus. Each faculty member can use the Canvas syllabus space in the way that works best for them: they can use the Canvas syllabus-building tool, they can upload the syllabus as a document, or they can link to an external syllabus (which is what I chose) — it’s all good.

Open syllabuses would benefit faculty too! We could all learn so much from each other by sharing syllabuses. If OU IT scraped the syllabuses periodically and built a search engine from the scrape, that would be so cool. I would personally love to discover connections by browsing a syllabus index, finding other faculty who use Twitter or blogs, and also finding other faculty who are teaching about India, about Buddhism, about mythology, about storytelling, etc.

Currently, my school is running both D2L and Canvas, but starting next year, it will be all Canvas. I hope very much that faculty will be required not just to post their syllabuses in Canvas, but to do so in the open. If it is not required, I doubt faculty will do it. And since we already do require something of them (i.e. we require them to post syllabus in the LMS), I think it is perfectly reasonable to require them to make the syllabuses public in our new Canvas LMS.

I also hope some resources will be dedicating to integrating that information with our SIS. Long ago, we had a system in which faculty syllabuses (published at our old faculty-staff.ou.edu webspace, now replaced by create.ou.edu) were integrated with our enrollment system (a homegrown system now replaced by Banner): if faculty had activated their webspace, students could get to the faculty member’s web space in a single click. I always posted my syllabuses that way, and I still publish the syllabuses in my own web space, even though it is no longer integrated with the enrollment system. I far prefer students to know what to expect when they enroll in my classes; that’s good for the students, which means it is good for me too. How great it would be if, when students look up a class in the enrollment system, they could get to course syllabuses in a single click!

Does anybody have stories of open syllabuses to share? In particular, an example of Canvas being used as an open syllabus platform for an entire campus? Integrated with the SIS? I would love to find examples of that to share with the administration at my school. We all have so much to gain from that: students and faculty alike!

And, yes, I need examples! I’ve raised the topic of open syllabuses many times with many people at my school, sharing resources like SALSA, etc., but so far, I have seen no commitment to an open syllabus project. I’m not sure if examples of open syllabuses at other schools would make a difference… but it certainly could not hurt.

So… are you taking advantage of Canvas’s open syllabuses at your school? And are the course syllabuses integrated with your SIS? Please share details!

Meanwhile, I am hoping that Canvas will indeed be a step forward for us in creating an open culture of learning at my school: let’s go!

Standing still is not growth. Take a step forward.

Crossposted at OU Canvas Community.

Go Open with Canvas

As #OpenEd16 gets underway, I am hoping it will signal the start of a push for Open-with-Canvas at my school. I’m an extreme LMS minimalist, but there is one huge difference between D2L and Canvas that I really do care about: Canvas can be OPEN.

So, that means without a log-in of any kind, you can visit my classes: there’s my live-content demo course at Canvas.Mytholore.net, plus the two classes I teach every semester: Myth.MythFolklore.net and India.MythFolklore.net. I can even link to pages inside those courses, like this page about Twitter Widgets in Canvas.

Real webpages. On the real Internet. The open Internet.

For me, OPEN IS THE KEY. This online educational space is something new, and it is something wonderful, too — and we are all just now learning how to use it. To learn how to use it well, we need to do that in the open, sharing and learning from one another.

Yes, I know: Canvas defaults to closed… I wish it defaulted to open. But that’s never going to happen. Which means: it’s up to US to open things up.

I’ve been teaching fully online courses since 2002, and I have always taught in the open. The whole reason I wanted to teach online was to be part of a community of learners online, working and sharing our work in the open with each other. I was inspired by people like the late, great Bruno Hare who created the Sacred Texts Archive, and all the great people who built the Perseus Digital Library, and other online pioneers who made it possible for me to share a wealth of knowledge with my students at their fingertips. Just as they shared their work online, I shared all my work online as well.

In turn, I also asked my students to share their work online, publishing their Storybook projects on the open Internet. Every semester, they produce beautiful, creative, original work, and almost all of them choose to leave their projects online after the class is over, for which I am extremely grateful. The archive of past student work is the single most valuable asset I have in teaching my classes.

Yet I know that for many faculty the openness of the Internet is a very strange experience. Even though academic life depends absolutely on the sharing of knowledge, that sharing has taken place primarily in the form of print publication and face-to-face encounters, while the online world is something different: sharing, yes, but different ways of sharing, with a culture of sharing that is unlike the hierarchical, top-down, gated-community culture of the academic world.

Still, even in that strictly hierarchical academic world, “openness” is making real inroads, as researchers realize that with open access their research will reach wider audiences and have greater impact. That conversation about open access scholarship is going strong at my school: just look at ShareOK, a repository where faculty can share their scholarly work (I have put four books there from my past life as a Latinist). We also have a Data Librarian (how cool is that?), and there are many other new initiatives in the Library to assist faculty in sharing their research work as widely as possible.

Plus, I am glad to say, the Library is also home to the OpenOU project — and their course grant project allowed me to transform the reading options in my Indian Epics class; thank you, @OUOpenEd!

My hope is that now, with Canvas, we can start to have an even wider conversation about open teaching at my school, helping faculty to see that just as their are great benefits to open access in scholarship, there are also great benefits to open access in teaching. In the coming days, I will write some posts here about specific aspects of openness in teaching, starting tomorrow with a post on open syllabuses.

Meanwhile, I will say a big THANK YOU to all the champions of openness who are gathered in Richmond for #OpenEd16 this week, and I am looking forward to following that hashtag (see the sidebar of this blog) and watching some Virtually Connecting events, enjoying all that good open energy even at a distance.

It’s time to open the door…
and explore the unknown!

Crossposted at OU Canvas Community.

Maati Baani in my Canvas Homepage

As a follow-up to the post this morning testing the new YouTube embedding in WordPress, I wanted to say something about the power of YouTube embedding in general, especially embedding a video as part of a playlist. I include one video each day in my class announcements, and today’s announcements contain an AMAZING new video by Maati Baani:

Here’s how it looks inside my Canvas homepage; you can also visit the class directly yourself (no log-in required) by going to India.MythFolklore.net:

I also include the entire video playlist of the Announcements in the sidebar of the announcements blog, as you can see here (that’s especially handy for students who might not always scroll down to see the whole blog post each day):

Using playlists like this is great because it means if a student plays the current day’s video, the video will carry on to the next video and the next, and so on. At this point, the Announcements playlist has 74 videos in it as of right now (new video every day of the semester), so potentially all kinds of items of interest to the students.

I can also embed the playlist in the other blogs I use as part of the class, like this blog dedicated to the readings for the Myth-Folklore class; this week, it’s British and Celtic readings, and the video playlist is in the sidebar. It’s a teeny-tiny video, but you can see the Maati Baani video playing there:

I really enjoy using embedded videos in this way: in blog posts, in sidebars, and therefore in Canvas too. My students feel the same way, and some of the most popular Tech Tips that I offer in class are for learning how to embed YouTube videos, create a playlist, etc. Embedding and linking: they are the superpowers of the Internet, opening up paths for creative students to explore.

Curiosity: the will to explore.

Crossposted at OU Canvas Community.