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​CANVAS:
I have had quite a few students and teachers come and ask me why links on their new semester courses don’t work.  Well there are a couple of reasons.

1. You copied the content and pasted it into the new course, instead of importing content.
2. The link is actually no longer valid.

Students and parents are asking why they can’t see the courses.  Below are two ways to trouble shoot this.

1. Publish the courses
2. Make sure courses are activated to show on Dashboard.

 
CANVAS Importing Content:
 
Here is what you want to do to fix the issue of the copy and paste.

1. You will need to “Import Existing Content” using the button on the home page in CANVAS.
2.  On the new window that pops up under Content Type choose “Copy a Canvas Course”. 
3. Under “Search for a Course” start typing the course title or the course number and you will see your courses pop up.  If you want to copy from first semester this year you want to find the course with 646-2021-X-1.  If you want to copy from another year the number in the middle is the graduation year.
4. Make sure that you check the radial buttons for “Select Specific Content” and “Adjust Events and Due Dates. 
5. Then click Import
6. Under “Current Jobs” you will then see a new blue button that says “Specific Content”.
   1. Click on that and it will give you all of the things that you can import over.  Make sure you take your Syllabus, Pages, and Course Content.

 
 
Here is another fix:

1. Find the broken links and items and go back to them.
2. Copy the URL and put it back in on each page.

 
 
CANVAS Publishing:
I have sent directions in email as to how to publish courses.  Please make sure your courses are published.
 
CANVAS courses missing:
If students have transferred into your classes after the initial enrollment date of today they may not see your CANVAS courses.  Here is how you can help them so they show up.

1. Go to the students CANVAS account and under courses click “All courses”
2. This will show a list of any and all courses the students have ever been enrolled in. 
3. Find the missing courses and click the star in front of it until it turns orange.
4. Go back to the Dashboard and the courses should now show up.

1. Cross-listing (Merging) Courses in Canvas –  teachers can now cross-list second semester courses.

Print Instructions
Video Instructions
 
              Refresher on Cross-listing
Cross-listing allows teachers to create content ONE TIME for all the sections they teach that are the same. For example: A teacher teaches Math 8 three times a day. Rather than creating canvas content three times, the teacher cross-lists the sections/class periods so they can create the content one time. 
Benefits of cross listing

1. HUGE TIME SAVER!
2. Teachers can still see one class at a time or all sections
3. Teachers can create an assignment once but give different due dates for each section or even for just one student.
4. Teachers can assign an assignment to one section or all sections.
5. GT and CORE teachers can cross-list and have some assignments the same and some different.

Potential issues with cross-listing 

1. Teachers could cross-list to the wrong course or a past course.
2. Once cross-listed, the LMETS is the only ones who can de-cross-list
3. De-cross-listing after assignments are turned in and scored means at least one section LOSES all submissions and scores.

​

Many of you have expressed frustration that your students aren't reading the announcements in CANVAS.  Here are the directions for fixing that.  You can actually have announcements show up as a top feature on your home page.  

Here are the steps for doing it:
community.canvaslms.com/t5/Instructor-Guide/How-do-I-show-recent-announcements-in-the-Course-Home-Page/ta-p/983

Next, go into Canvas and click on a course.  Choose Settings, and then click on Apps (the fourth tab across on the tabs in Settings).

Search for the app “Redirect”.  Click on the icon and then click “Add App”.  The configuration box will then appear.

​

​Greetings traditional graders (non-PBL’ers!  (if you are doing PBL this does not affect you)
 
For years now Canvas (Groups) and Gradebook (Categories) have had to match.
 
I have always suggested to use one of the 4 GSD defaults in Gradebook, so you do not have to do MORE work.   Many teachers throughout the years have made their own categories groups and “the district” has made these personal Category groups work with Canvas, and all has worked well.
 
It seems now that many of these teacher made “category groups” are not working as well as they have been in the past.  Meaning assignments from Canvas are not pushing over to gradebook properly and causing grade issues.  There seems to be NO PROBLEMS with teachers who are using one the 4 default Category Groups in gradebook.
 
Part of the reason teachers make their own Category Groups is so they can “weight” the groups as desired.  The GSD default ones are NOT weight-able.   The work around is to just make “heavier” assignments such as “assessments” worth more points.  (Also if you weight your grades in Gradebook and NOT in Canvas the grades will never match.)
 
In order to stop any future discrepancies please use ONLY 1 of the 4 default Category Groups in Gradebook.  If you need help switching your categories I will gladly show you on Friday AFTER you post midterms.
 
This does not affect Grade Scales. 

​Have you ever wanted to know how which students are logging into your CANVAS courses and how long they are spending within your class?  Here are the directions for you:

1.  Open CANVAS and go to any of your courses.

    2. On the left hand side of your main window in the navigation pane click on “New Analytics”.

     3.  This will open a new window that will give you information on students and there CANVAS activity.

    4.  Across the top you will see tabs that show you the averages for things like Course Grades, Weekly Online Activity, Students, and Reports.
    5.  You can sort it so that you can see specific students or periods.  It defaults to “All Sections” if you have your courses cross listed.  (You just need to click the drop down carrot to see the different options.)

    6.  The Students tab will give you the information student by student with last time your page was viewed and how many times they have viewed.

   7.  Under “Reports” you will see a number of reports that can be run that will give you further information on students and their usage in your classes.

​Are you tired of your students complaining because their Canvas percentages don’t exactly match their Gradebook ones?
 
This can be a result of a couple of things:

1. Gradebook is weighted and CANVAS is not.  (Sorry, but at this point you will have to wait until second semester to make weighting changes.)
2. Gradebook is rounding to a different place value than Canvas.
3. You have assignments in Groups in CANVAS that are not the “approved talking” groups in Gradebook
   ​a.  The assignment goes up to Gradebook from CANVAS but isn’t being calculated because it doesn’t have an approved or matching category to drop into.

 
Here is a quick and simple way to get rid of the CANVAS percentages so kids are forced to see their grades in Gradebook.  (Remember, Gradebook is the official grade calculator for the district.)
 
In CANVAS:

1. Choose the course. (You will have to do this for all courses individually, I am sorry to say.)
2. Go to “Settings”
3. Scroll down on the settings page until you see “More Options”.

​    4.  Click on “More Options.
    5.   lt will  open a set of drop downs with checks.
          a.  Find the one that says “Hide totals in student grades summary”, and check that box.
          b.  By checking this box you turn off all of the percentages for each group in CANVAS for students.      You as the teacher will still see them, however.

​1. To filter your grades so that you no longer see 1st Quarters grades you will want to click on the drop-down by “View” towards the top.

​2. Click on “Filters” and then check mark “Grading Periods”.  

​3. This will open a Grading Period filter on the right-hand side. 

​4. You can then toggle the grading period to Grading Period 2, and only have to look at the Grading Period 1 assignments if you need to.  


No, more creating groups that don’t push to Gradebook, or seeing all the assignments and grades in a huge list.

​It is easy to filter Canvas so that you are only seeing the assignments and grades for a specific grading period.  Canvas is set up by semesters so if you do not filter by grading period you and your kids will have to scroll through all the assignments for the entire semester. 
Here is how you do it:

1. (This will need to be done in each course.) The default under the “Assignments” tab is “All Grading Periods.  This can be seen at the top of the page along the same lines as “+Assignment”.

 

2. Click on the drop-down arrow next to “All Grading Periods”.  This will open so that you see four separate grading periods for the class.  (Yes, I realize that you get new classes with new course numbers at second semester.)
           a. When you are ready to move to “Grading Period 2” click on that and it will hold.  
           b. You will notice unless you have assignments with “Due Dates” in for second grading period that it might be blank.  If you have assignments in with second term due dates those will now be what you are seeing in your assignments list.
         c. If you use multiple groups and have assignments in those groups they will be showing under their respective groups as you created, it.
 
3. Once you have chosen the respective grading period it should stay that way for you.  

4. Students will also, need to toggle their grading periods as well. 
 
5. This will make it so much easier to find the assignments you are using for second quarter.