Announcements are messages from your instructor that contain important information. Current announcements can be accessed through the Announcements tab in Canvas. Announcements may highlight assignment due dates (also published in the course Calendar), lesson recaps, a preview of an upcoming lesson and other essential course information.
Chat allows individuals in a course to interact in real time. Be aware that messages in the chat cannot be deleted, and the chat history can be viewed by anyone in the course.
Conferences allow instructors or student Groups to host synchronous meetings online. Canvas integrates with BigBlueButton, a conferencing tool similar to Adobe Connect. Recordings made in BigBlueButton are available for a period of only two weeks after creation.
Occasionally, the University or the World Campus needs to communicate with students. To do so, they use the @psu.edu e-mail address that each registered student has been given and not the Canvas course e-mail.
In addition, a letter, in PDF format, that reports your final course grade will be automatically generated and sent to your @psu.edu e-mail address.
So, it is important that you regularly monitor your @psu.edu e-mail account.
This course will be conducted entirely online. There are no set class meeting times, but you will be required to complete weekly assignments. Registered students in this course will need to navigate between several environments. These include:
The instructional materials on this site include lessons, plus the Orientation. Each lesson contains an introduction, reading assignments, links, assessments, etc.
Canvas is the learning management system currently being used by Penn State University. In Canvas, registered students may consult course calendars; communicate with instructors, teaching assistants, and fellow students; submit assignments; receive feedback from the instructor and teaching assistant; take online quizzes and surveys; and check assignment scores and course grades. A link to Canvas appears on every page.
Following is information about Canvas, Penn State's Learning Management System (LMS). In Canvas, registered students may consult course calendars; communicate with instructors, teaching assistants, and fellow students; submit assignments; receive feedback from the instructor and teaching assistant; take online quizzes and surveys; and check assignment scores and course grades. A link to Canvas appears on every page.
If you are new to Canvas, it is strongly recommended that you complete the PSU: Canvas Student Orientation.
You may also want to review the Canvas Student Guide to acclimate yourself further, and watch the following video:
Credit: Canvas Overview for Students from Canvas LMS.
In this video, you will learn how to navigate your Dashboard, courses, and Global Navigation Menu in Canvas.
When you log in to Canvas, the first thing you see is the Dashboard, which provides a high-level overview of your current courses. The Dashboard can be displayed in three different viewing options.
Card View displays a course card for each of your favorite courses. Each card can include clickable icons for Assignments, Announcements, Discussions, and Files. List View displays an agenda view of graded items from your courses, as well as any non-graded items your instructors designate for a course To Do list. You can also add your own items to the agenda.
Recent Activity View displays a stream of recent notifications from all your courses, including announcements, conversations, assignments, discussions, and peer reviews.
You can also access the course grades page from the Course Card and Recent Activity Views by clicking the View Grades button. The Grades page displays grades for all of your courses. To view grade details for a specific course, click the name of the course.
To view a course, click the Courses link in Global Navigation and click the name of the course you want to view. The course opens to the home page set by your instructor.
You can use the Course Navigation links, breadcrumb navigation, or the sidebar to navigate to different areas of the course.
The sidebar includes a To Do list that displays links to announcements and other items that require action in your courses, such as assignments, quizzes, discussions, and pages.
If your course includes student groups, you can view a list of your groups in Course Groups. Click the group name to view the group homepage. View recent assignment feedback in Recent Feedback. Click the assignment name to view feedback in the Submission Details page.
Canvas displays a Global Navigation Menu that gives you direct access to your courses and other areas of Canvas.
Click the Account link to log out of Canvas, specify your notification preferences, upload and view personal files, modify your user settings, manage ePortfolios, obtain a QR code to log in to the Student app, view global announcements, and enable a high-contrast user interface.
Click the Dashboard link to return to the Canvas Dashboard. Click the Courses link to quickly access your favorite courses and view a list of all your courses. Click the Groups link to access groups in which you are enrolled or view a list of all your groups.
Click the Calendar link to view your personal calendar and course calendars. Click the Inbox link to view and send messages to your instructors and peers within Canvas. Click the History link to view a list of course content and content areas you have viewed within the last three weeks.
Click the Help link to access help resources for your institution.
Thanks for watching this Canvas overview video. To learn more about Canvas, ask questions, or engage with other Canvas users, please visit community.canvaslms.com.
The Canvas Help Center provides extensive, up-to-date documentation on making sure your computer is configured properly for Canvas. Failure to follow these recommendations may result in significant issues while viewing materials, taking assessments, and using drop boxes. Use of unsupported browsers is at your own risk.
This site includes the majority of the instructional materials for this class. There are a few things you should know about this website.
This site uses a "tab" interface to organize content. The tabs are used as follows:
Meaningful interactions among students and instructors are the hallmark of a successful online class. Canvas supports several types of communication, as described below.
In addition, registered students have Penn State e-mail accounts (<Access Account ID>@psu.edu) that they need to monitor for any official communications that come from the University or from the Penn State World Campus.
Please note that this is a comprehensive list of communication tools available in Canvas. This course may or may not utilize all of the options below.
These are messages from your instructor that contain important information. Current announcements can be accessed through the Announcements link in Canvas. Announcements may highlight assignment due dates (also published in the course Calendar), lesson recaps, a preview of an upcoming lesson and other essential course information.
The Inbox is the equivalent of e-mail in Canvas. It's great to use for a quick e-mail to another student, instructor, or a whole team. Keep in mind that the text editor is very minimal, and does not have much formatting capability. Please use the Canvas Inbox only for private messages to instructors or fellow students.
Discussions allow students to interact with the instructor and other classmates. Threaded discussions allow multiple posts and replies. New posts appear in the Course Activity Stream page, so you will know when something has been posted.
Conferences allow instructors or student Groups to host synchronous meetings online. Canvas integrates with BigBlueButton, a conferencing tool similar to Adobe Connect. Recordings made in BigBlueButton are available for a period of only two weeks after creation.
Whenever you post a message in a forum or send course mail, please title every message with a descriptive subject line. Subject lines that include the gist of a question or comment increase the chances that students and instructors can retrieve the messages we're looking for. Poor subject lines, such as "Question" or "Lesson 1," are not very useful as search keywords. When replying to a prior message, consider whether or not the subject line should be altered to indicate the content of your reply!
Conversations is the equivalent of e-mail in Canvas. It's great to use for a quick e-mail to another student, instructor, or a whole team. Keep in mind that the text editor is very minimal, and does not have much formatting capability.
Threaded Discussions allow students to interact with the instructor and other classmates and allow multiple posts and replies. New posts appear in the Course Activity Stream page, so you will know when something has been posted.
In general, questions and comments about project assignments and course content should be shared with the entire class via the discussion forums. That way, everyone can benefit from the discussion.
Please note that in the discussion forum's default mode, it is very difficult to keep track of whether you've read a post or not. To override the default mode setting, perform the following steps:
1. Use the Discussions link in the main menu to open a view of all discussion forums.
[If the Discussions link is not available in the main menu (it is visible in some courses and not in others), simply enter any discussion forum, find the Discussions link at the top of the page, and click the link. Proceed to step 2.]
2. Click on the gear/cog icon in the upper right to open the Edit Discussions Settings dialog.
3. Under My Settings, check the box to Manually mark posts as read, and then click the Save Settings button.
4. After you've changed the default settings, you can click on the blue dots to the left of discussion posts to more easily keep track of what you have and haven't read.
Your Canvas Profile and User Settings let you control your personal information in Canvas. Take a few minutes to personalize your Canvas profile and set your Notification Preferences, by following the instructions below.
| Task | Instructions |
|---|---|
| Personalize your Canvas Profile |
|
| If you use PSU OneID |
Students who are enrolled with OneID will not receive emails automatically from Canvas due to not having PSU email access. We advise that students set up a personal email address for notifications.
|
| Set your notification preferences |
You have the option to select how, when, and for what information you would like to receive notifications. This can be very helpful when keeping track of items such as discussion posts, assignment due dates, and exams. Visit Canvas Notification Preference Support and follow the instructions for setting up your notification preferences. The video below this table provides additional information. To ensure that your Canvas Inbox messages forward to your regular e-mail account immediately, check the "Notify me right away" option (the checkmark) for each item under "Conversations" in Notification Preferences. |
| Set your timezone |
|
| Download the Canvas App | For information on using the app by device, please see the following: |
In this video, you will learn about managing your notification settings for all courses and for an individual course.
To get started, click the Account link in the Global Navigation menu.
Then click the Settings link.
To add an email, click the Add Email Address link.
Enter your email address in the field and click the Register Email button.
After your email has been registered, you will receive a confirmation email. To complete registration, click the link provided in the email.
To manage notifications for all your courses, click the Notifications link in the User Navigation menu.
You can also access your notifications from anywhere in Canvas by clicking the Account link and clicking the Notifications link.
Notification settings are divided into sections including: Course Activities, Discussions, Conversations, Scheduling, Groups, Conferences, and Alerts.
Each section includes notification categories. You can view what triggers each notification by hovering your cursor over the category.
Contact methods linked to your account and push notifications for the Canvas apps are listed in individual columns.
To change how often you receive notifications for a specific category and contact method, click the corresponding notification icon.
You can receive notifications immediately, receive a daily or weekly summary, or turn notifications off completely.
Instructors, students, and observers can also manage notification settings at the course level. To open a course, click the Courses link in Global Navigation and click the name of the course.
In the Course Home Page, click the View Course Notifications button.
You can choose to enable or disable notifications for your course using the Enable Notifications toggle button.
If notifications have been enabled for your course, you can specify how often notifications are sent to a contact method for a specific category. Course notification sections and categories may differ from those available at the account level. However, course level settings will override notification settings at the account level for that course.
To manage how often you receive notifications for a specific category and contact method, click the corresponding notification icon. Then click how often you'd like to receive the notification.
Thanks for watching this Notification Settings overview video. To learn more about Canvas, ask questions, or engage with other Canvas users, please visit community.canvaslms.com.