Focus of the Week: Communication in Canvas

During our October professional learning day, I had the opportunity to meet with many of you for an "Hour on Canvas." The next few editions of the Friday Five will focus on questions and discussions from those sessions. 

Question:  What are the differences between Announcements, Calendar Events, and the In-Box?

1. Announcements: Announcements allow teachers to communicate with students about course activities and post interesting course-related topics. Announcements are designed to allow instructors to broadcast information to all members of a course or to all members of sections within a course. Annoucements provide flexibility becasue teachers can delay the posting of an announcement. Teachers can allow students to reply and/or "like" Announcements. Announcement notifications appear on both the Course Card and in the To-Do List for students.

2. Calendar Events: A Calendar Event is an item that is placed on a class calendar. It provides information to students. They are best used as reminders and non-graded items. Unlike Assignments, Calendar Events do not create a column in the gradebook. Unlike Annoucements, students will not see a Calendar Event notification on their course card; however, the information will appear on the student's course calendar and To-Do list. 

3. In-Box Conversations: In-Box Conversations are Canvas' version of email. Teachers can communicate with an entire Course, an entire Section, or a Group within a course. Teachers (and students) can compose messages from their In-Box found in the green account navigation strip. One of the strongest features of Conversations is that you can send one message to a group of students, but each student gets an individual message.

4. Message Students Who: Teachers can send an In-Box Conversation to students directly from their Canvas gradebooks. Simply click on the triangle to the right of the assignment title and select your  criteria.

Question: How do teachers and students control their notifications on communications in Canvas?

5. Notifications: Each user, regardless of role, can control how and how often Canvas notifies them of activities in their courses. Notification preferences can be defined by going to Account and then Notifications. As a teacher, you likely want to have Conversations set to arrive in your pennridge.org email RIGHT AWAY. Remember, you can reply to a Canvas message directly from your Outlook email. People who use a Canvas App can also set notifications within the App settings. Remember, when using a Canvas App search for Pennridge via pennridge.instructure.com.