Skip to main content

Less Physics Mo Problems

Why am I writing this personal entry? Well, it is not an attempt to gain any sympathy. It attempts to show what is possible if a clear intention and goal serve the learner's needs.  In May of 2022 just near the end of another fantastic school year, I do not remember what happened. But, I was unable to finish the school year and was unable to teach the following year.  Why? On May 21st, 2022, I fell down a flight of 16 stairs (luckily carpeted) from the 2nd to 1st story of our home.  I was found at the bottom of the stairs. I was found foaming at the mouth. This would lead to a 2-month hospital stay which included an induced coma because my seizures would not stop, several rounds of lumbar punctures, and relearning basic physical movements like something as simple as being able to roll in the hospital bed. Simply put, when I was admitted to the hospital, I was diagnosed as being “critically ill.” Please take a moment and read those words: critically ill. They are not terms that are

Prime Real Estate in Canvas


As I enter my 5th year of using Canvas as an LMS, I’ve come a long way in terms of how I design the look of my course to facilitate simpler and more transparent workflows for my learners.
So, I just wanted to give you a quick tour because a lot of what I have learned has come from others sharing out to the greater EdTech community. So, I just want to keep paying it forward. The biggest breakthrough for me is embedding Google Slides into my site pages. It is really a game changer

Dashboard

First things first. If you haven’t added an image to your course to appear in the dashboard, get on it. It’ll make your course easier to identify and stand out. 

This can all be done in the SETTINGS section.
  1. In FEATURE OPTIONS, turn on ENABLE DASHBOARD IMAGES FOR CANVAS.
  2. In COURSE DETAILS, click on IMAGE to upload or change your current image. You can upload a jpeg. 

If you’re interested in creating GIFs instead of just static images, check out this post.

Home Page

My home page is a page that I created in canvas and set as the home page. The home page is divided into 2 distinct areas: Weekly Schedule and Unit Pages Buttons.

Weekly Schedule

This is the first thing students will see when they enter the course, so I wanted this space to be meaningful. It is prime real estate! So I embedded a Google Slide presentation which shows what is being done in class that day and what is being done that week. I update the daily list each morning and start a new slide for each week. That way students can go back to see what was done previous weeks. In addition, where appropriate, direct links will take students to locations within Canvas such as Assignment Pages.

Using the Embed code from Google Slides and pasting it into the HTML editor makes it easy to publish a slide presentation right into Canvas.  Get the Embed code by publishing to the web from Google Slides.



Then paste the code into the HTML editor


If the slide window is not as wide as you would like, a little trick that I do is putting the following text into the embed code: width = “99%”. That just ensures that the slides take up 99% of the available width.

Unit Pages Menu

For each unit, I create a different page in Canvas. Each page is then linked directly from the home page with an image that serves as a button. Of course I use GIFs, but any image will do. But make sure it has some text to indicate where it will take students. Another way to use Google Slides is to make your a slide for each button and then download them as jpegs from the FILE menu in Google Slides (File -> Download as -> JPEG image). To make the most of your space, using a table to arrange the images is helpful.

Individual Unit Page

Each unit page created has a list of the assignments that will be digitally submitted. This will be around 5 - 6 per unit. Then there is a slide show containing practice resources for the unit.

Assigned Lessons

Rather than going with the module view, I try to make the page as clean as possible. I start with the list of digital submissions to make it clear what EVERYONE needs to be sure and submit. I add them as they are introduced. So there is only one right now. But using the sidebar makes adding the assignment a one click process.

I usually play around with font sizes to make sure that students can easily read the lettering.

Practice Resources

I used to use modules or tables to organize my practice resources, but it became a the “Scroll of Death”. Organizing my practice resources into slides has made it much more manageable. On each page there is a variety of practice modes including links to readings, simulations, practice quizzes on Canvas, and YouTube Videos.

Because it is an embedded slide deck, students just click to go through different topics. As a teacher, I can go into the Slide Deck and control which slide is seen first and hide slides I don’t want to appear yet.

Assignment Pages

I love using SpeedGrader as a feedback tool for learners. This year I am moving away from 4 point rubrics to single point rubrics. In the assignment detail, I embed the Google Doc of the rubric just like I would for a Google Slideshow. This allows for a very clean look, but also allows me to make edits in the doc and have them reflected in the version seen on Canvas. Edits in the doc are reflected in the published version embedded on the assignment page.
Then, I build the rubric for SpeedGrader. Because the rubrics are built around the same science practices, I create the criteria for the overarching outcomes in the OUTCOME section of Canvas. This allows me to easily import them into any assignment rubric I want to create.


One of my main goals in using Canvas is to make workflows manageable from the STUDENT perspective. That means reducing the number of student clicks and scrolling to get where they need to go. I look forward to getting feedback from my learners about the new course design and what would make it easier to work with.

I would love to see how you are organizing your Canvas course this year. I am always looking to learn how others are innovating in Canvas!

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Twitter Cards for Blogger

So, I’ve been seeing people with beautiful Twitter Cards in my Twitter Stream. They make it clear that there is a web page to visit and give a quick preview of what would be found. Something like the one below: I’ve been wondering how to get one of the cards to appear when I tweet out a link to my latest blog post.  Since I use Blogger, there is not a simple button to click to turn this on.  I had to find a way to paste new code into the HTML code of my blog.  It took some searching from multiple sites to get a completely functional.   This site though was quite helpful.  But, I’d like to walk you through my process and hopefully it helps a few out. There are a few types of Twitter Cards.  Two that at most frequently see are the basic summary card and the summary card with large image.  Below you can see the layout of each, but realize that they both have the same content pieces. This is going to look like a lot more work than it will actually be

Personalized Learning Tasks and Roles

Yesterday, I read a great post by Jim Rickabaugh dealing with the roles of learner and teacher in a personalized learning environment by looking at tasks . The roles were set up on a continuum. This article timed perfectly with a reflection on part of Students at the Center by Allison Zmuda and Bena Kallick on idea generation and task development I had in mind. These two works are the focus of my reflection here. I think a key misunderstand teachers have when it comes to digging into personalizing learning is that for planning purposes, we no longer begin with standards but with student desires.  I believe like all good instruction, we need to start with the standards.  Think about it, standards are what we want all learners to know and be able to do as a result of passing through our educational system. That is why it is essential that we make sure that standards are representative of what we believe is important for learners to be informed and productive in their futur

Pear Deck 101 + Q&A

  Last week, I presented as a part of Pear Deck’s Pear Fair 2020. My presentation was Pear Deck 101 for Google Slides. During the presentation, there was a live chat. Many people said it went too fast for a 101 Session. Luckily, it was recorded so it can be rewatched.  Also, many said that they wanted to know how to build a Pear Deck first. I structured the presentation to show what Pear Deck was before showing how to make one. Perhaps that wasn’t the best structure. But, I’m going to stick with my philosophy of showing what something is before showing how to make it. The presentation, which can be watched below, was structured in several different sections What is Pear Deck? Providing an overview of the experience from the Teacher and Student perspectives. How do you build a Pear Deck in Google Slides? How do you start a Pear Deck presentation? How do you end a Pear Deck presentation? Here is the Slideshow I shared during the session bit.ly/pearfair101 Time really flew in the sess