{"id":635,"date":"2017-02-23T18:47:44","date_gmt":"2017-02-23T18:47:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/canvas.lauragibbs.net\/wpblog\/?p=635"},"modified":"2017-02-28T00:53:32","modified_gmt":"2017-02-28T00:53:32","slug":"more-on-embedded-blogs-or-sites","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canvas.lauragibbs.net\/wpblog\/blogging\/more-on-embedded-blogs-or-sites\/","title":{"rendered":"More on Embedded Blogs (or Sites)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Keegan just shared a great post about embedding a website in Canvas via the Redirect Tool: How To Integrate Websites Into Canvas<\/strong><\/a>. Lots of helpful information and screenshots also! If the goal is to have students actually stay in Canvas, using the Redirect Tool to add the site address to the course navigation definitely works. That is the method Keegan documents there in his post.<\/p>\n

If, however, you want to use the embedded site as your Home Page, then you need a different option:\u00a0the iframe tag is a way that you can insert a\u00a0website into a Canvas Page<\/strong>. You can then make that Page the Home Page of your course. That’s the main difference between these two methods of embedding \u2014 unless there is some way to make a Redirect item into a Home Page??? If\u00a0there is, I have not figured that out.<\/p>\n

Here’s how the Blog-as-Home-Page works for me:<\/p>\n

Whenever a student arrives at my Canvas course, the first thing they see is the announcements:\u00a0Myth.MythFolklore.net<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong>(course is fully public, so you too can just click and go). Here’s a screenshot:
\n
\n<\/a><\/p>\n

You’ll notice I also have a note up there at the top, alerting people that they can just pop open the embedded site in a tab of its own if they want.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

So, if students\u00a0are just on their way to the Gradebook, at least they will see the top part of the announcements (which is where I put the key information each day). If they are going to read through the whole announcements page, though, they will have a better time doing that outside the Canvas straitjacket, which is why I encourage them to open the blog in a new tab.<\/p>\n

For details on how to embed a blog this way and also configure it to be the Home Page, see this post:\u00a0Blissfully Blogging Announcements<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n

IMPORTANT: http links.\u00a0<\/strong>Also, if you do embed a website, either with iframe or with the Redirect app, it is really important that you make sure the links open in a new tab. Canvas will not open http links inside Canvas; you have to open http links in a new tab. Worse: there is no warning or error message from Canvas if you click on an embedded http link. Just… nothing. You click and click and nothing happens. A student might figure out that they need to right-mouse-click to open in a new tab, but I wouldn’t count on it. They are just as likely to assume the link is broken.<\/p>\n

So, given that there are still plenty of http links out there in the world \u2014 including all OUCreate sites that have not turned on encryption<\/em> \u2014 I’ve found it easiest just to set up the site to open all links in a new tab automatically. I use the <base target=’_blank’\/> tag in my blog\u00a0template header, but I am guessing there are other good ways to do that too (more details<\/strong><\/a>).<\/p>\n

Are there any other tips and suggestions from people who are using the Redirect app or iframe to bring external content into Canvas? Share your ideas in the comments here or at Keegan’s post<\/strong><\/a>. Or you can find us both at Twitter: @OnlineCrsLady<\/strong><\/a> and @KeeganSLW<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n

Break through the barriers!<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

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Crossposted at OU Canvas Community<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Keegan just shared a great post about embedding a website in Canvas via the Redirect Tool: How To Integrate Websites Into Canvas. Lots of helpful information and screenshots also! If the goal is to have students actually stay in Canvas, using the Redirect Tool to add the site address to the course navigation definitely works. … Continue reading More on Embedded Blogs (or Sites)<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-635","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blogging"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canvas.lauragibbs.net\/wpblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/635","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canvas.lauragibbs.net\/wpblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canvas.lauragibbs.net\/wpblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canvas.lauragibbs.net\/wpblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canvas.lauragibbs.net\/wpblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=635"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/canvas.lauragibbs.net\/wpblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/635\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":641,"href":"https:\/\/canvas.lauragibbs.net\/wpblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/635\/revisions\/641"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canvas.lauragibbs.net\/wpblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=635"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canvas.lauragibbs.net\/wpblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=635"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canvas.lauragibbs.net\/wpblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=635"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}