CANVAS ADMIN TIPS: DECEMBER

Welcome to PCSD Monthly Canvas Tips 2022-2023!

This month's tips will help you continue making small steps forward to meeting the style guide expectations. If you need a refresher on the Style Guide Click Here.

For in-school assistance contact your school's Canvas Support Specialist or Tina McCulloch, District Educational Technology Specialist - tinamc@provo.edu

To view last Month's Tips click here

Tip #1: Creating a subject Homepage

Each subject and have its own homepage that helps to create a transition from one subject to another. Please read the Canvas Community Instructor Guide below or watch the video on some of the different ways you can design your subject homepages.

This is one of the style guide requirements for 4th-6th grades.

		How do I customize the Subject Home Page as an instructor?(Canvas Instructor Guide)
		How do I Build a Simple Subject Homepage? (YouTube Video)
		How do I Build a Subject Homepage 2.0? (YouTube Video)
		How do I Put a Module on my Homepage Using DesignPLUS (Youtube Video)

Tip #2: Designate a Homeroom Course

The Canvas Homeroom creates an online classroom environment. Please read the Canvas Community Instructor Guide below or watch the video on how to designate a Homeroom Course. This is one of the style guide requirements for 4th-6th grades.

		How do I designate a subject as a homeroom course as an instructor?
		YouTube: C4E: Homeroom Tour
		YouTube: C4E: Setting Course As Homeroom

Tip #3: Important Info Page in Homeroom

You can add an Important Info page to your Homeroom using the Resources tab. This page can be used to deliver information to students and parents that is outside of a specific academic subject, such as teacher information and newsletters. Each subject also has a Resources tab which can be used to share resources they will use for that subject.

Ideas for how to use the Homeroom Resource tab/Important Info page:

Teacher Bio
Best Contact Info for Teacher
Class Expectations Documents
Login Instructions for Curriculum
Class Newsletters
Other Items needed for the year that don't fall under a specific subject area

Below is an example of what your Important Info Page could look like:

Use the following resources to build your Important Info page:

		How do I add Important Info in the Resources tab as an instructor?
		YouTube Video: C4E: Creating Important Info Page

Tip #4: Working with Homeroom Announcements

Announcements deliver timely class information to both students and parents. A few suggestions are: the month's theme, birthdays, school schedule changes, field trips, picture days, and due dates for major projects. They can also be effective for communicating weekly (or even daily) schedules and learning targets.

How do I create a Homeroom announcement as an instructor?

WARNING: Canvas announcements only post for two weeks. One SOLUTION is to just copy/paste/delay the second posting of your initial announcement. To learn how to delay posting an announcement, read the Canvas Community Instructor Guide below:

How do I delay posting an announcement until a specific date in a course?

Tip #5: Digital Curriculum Single Sign On

This summer we worked on simplifying the logins for all of our Digital Curriculum to make it easier for students to login. Students can now access all of the district-wide digital curricula through Google SSO or Clever SSO.

Many have been asking the question, "Can I add a link to the curriculum from my Canvas course(s) and if so how do I link the curricula into Canvas?" This is a great question and it is possible to create a link to the digital curriculum platforms from Canvas. The video below will show you how to do this.

---- Creating Buttons to Digital Curriculum from Canvas

You will need the Google Single Sign-On links to be able to complete this task, below are all the SSO links for the digital curricula and our Clever URL.

	https://accounts.google.com/o/saml2/initsso?idpid=C03g86n67&spid=259727598891&forceauthn=false
	https://accounts.google.com/o/saml2/initsso?idpid=C03g86n67&spid=560205660649&forceauthn=false
	https://accounts.google.com/o/saml2/initsso?idpid=C03g86n67&spid=259727598891&forceauthn=false
	https://accounts.google.com/o/saml2/initsso?idpid=C03g86n67&spid=324143260914&forceauthn=false
	https://clever.com/in/provo/

If you would like to use the buttons that we have already created you may access them here.