Tag: canvas

NUIT Post Exchange: Designing Your Course with Mobile in Mind

by Aug 10, 2015

This article was originally posted on the NUIT LMS blog on July 27, 2015. Students use Canvas on their phones. Some instructors do, but many do not. Instructors can make it easier for students to interact with the course via mobile. Here are some tips for making it easier to use your course on mobile devices: 1) Check out your courses using the Canvas apps (both for iPhones and Android).  Check out a past course to see where the problem areas are. 2) As you are building a new course, check out how it looks on phones and a tablet to see

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Saying Goodbye to Blackboard

Aug 03, 2015

On August 31, 2015, Northwestern University will no longer use or access Blackboard. In SPS, all online courses have been migrated to Canvas as of Summer Quarter 2015, but individual instructors may still have information in their archived Blackboard course sites. NUIT has provided guides for how to back up information from a Blackboard course, as well as how to create a record of a full course site. NUIT’s Canvas site explains how to save this information. Follow the steps for Saving Course Files if you just want to preserve individual course assets, such as readings or handouts. If you

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How to Make the Most of the Canvas Community Site

by Jul 20, 2015

This year at InstructureCon, Canvas made some big announcements, including a presentation on the Canvas Community site called Community 2.0: Meet the All-New Canvas Community. One thing I’ve learned from the presentation is that I currently fall into the category of community participant that only engages when I need specific information; more frequent than those who rarely or never visit, but not as engaged as those who are actively commenting and contributing. The new community is built to continue providing the primary function that I visit it for–to find technical support guides–but now also adds improved functionality in idea sharing and

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Let’s Give ’Em Something to Talk About—Part II Writing Engaging Discussion Forum Prompts

by May 26, 2015

Guest Post by: Leslie Fischer. Leslie Fischer teaches in traditional, hybrid, and online classrooms at SPS and Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences. She has taught writing, literature, and communication at SPS for 28 years and has taught at the university level for 34 years.  Reach her on twitter @LeslieAFischer or by email at l-fischer@northwestern.edu. In a previous blog post, I wrote about the professor’s online presence in discussion forums. Part two focuses on writing discussion prompts that cultivate distance learning students’ active learning. Active learning depends on students being both socially and cognitively present; throughout the term, develop an array of

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Let’s Give ’Em Something to Talk About Part I: Five Instructor Practices that Cultivate Online Discussions

May 11, 2015

Guest Post by: Leslie Fischer. Leslie Fischer teaches in traditional, hybrid, and online classrooms at SPS and Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences. She has taught writing, literature, and communication at SPS for 28 years and has taught at the university level for 34 years.  Reach her on twitter @LeslieAFischer or by email at l-fischer@northwestern.edu.   When teaching an online course, the discussion forum is often your primary connection with your students. Thoughtfully and actively managing the discussion forums can elevate the level of course conversations. Unlike the casual comments that might get tossed off in the classroom, students whose comments are

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