Category: Tech Tips!

Where was that Tech Tip on accessibility again…?  Is this the current version of the Distance Ed Plan?  You asked, we answered!  Distance Education resources have been given a new home at pdcdeltacollege.com/de – Bookmark this …

Instructure, the company that makes Canvas, has introduced a redesigned Gradebook with many new features! The new Gradebook can be enabled (optionally) by going into each course site’s Settings >> Feature Options >> and toggling …

Why have a clickable image in your course?  Creating an image of yourself using the Bitmoji app on your phone is a fun way to humanize your course and let students know you are approachable.   …

The first step in Regular Effective Contact, according to the OEI Course Design Rubric, is Pre-Course Contact.  For those of you with late-starting classes, this tip is for you! B1: Pre-Course Contact.   Aligned: Instructor initiates …

Homepages can make or break student retention and success. If students can’t figure out how to navigate at the “front door” of your course, then it’s unlikely that they will stick around for long. This …

  Today’s tech tip is about having a plan for Regular Effective Contact in your online and hybrid courses and making it visible.  One suggestion is to add a “Regular Effective Contact” section to your …

Recently, Delta College updated its curriculum system to a new version of CurricUNET, now called Curriqunet. As part of the update, Sharon Daegling and I worked on a new, more robust curriculum process for the …

Faculty may now add Readers and Tutors to their Canvas courses! The Office of Regional and Distance Education has established two new roles in Canvas, based on District job descriptions –    Reader (Delta): Assists …

The OEI Rubric for online courses highly recommends that faculty give students an opportunity to give anonymous feedback about the course. It’s part of the regular effective contact that is required in online courses. I …

Last week, I sent the following message about new mini-videos that @One has created. I picked one video segment to demonstrate the kinds of topics that are covered: For example, did you know there’s a …

@One has created a series of short video segments about a variety of topics about Canvas usage and online course design. If you haven’t seen these yet, I recommend spending some flex time looking over …

Today’s tech tip is about how to use the Home Page of your Canvas courses as a way to connect students to the subject you teach and to the college they attend. We teach a …

Standing. Room. Only.  Three words that describe last year’s Canvas Faculty Show & Tell! This favorite event is happening tomorrow!  Come join a panel of our very own faculty experts for a 4-part round of …

  You may remember our earlier tips on organizing your Canvas Dashboard with course colors, nicknames, and drag & drop arranging.  We are pleased to add one more way to make courses stand out on …

Our Distance Education office recently received a request for an easy to use “checklist” with examples of Regular Effective Contact (REC) to use in online and hybrid courses as you work toward meeting the requirements …

Discussions are an effective way of achieving both professor-initiated communication with students and student-to-student communication. Please review my Tips for Participating in Discussions Regularly If you have questions about discussions or other functions within Canvas, …

  This week’s tip is about creating reports on how students are doing on outcomes in your Canvas courses. Last week, I sent out a Tech Tip about how to create outcomes and link them …

One of the features that makes Canvas useful is that you can link outcomes to courses and collect data about student performance on those outcomes. This is particularly useful when it is time to update …

  Our first Tech Tip of the semester is all about getting organized – specifically, the course cards on your Canvas Dashboard.  Missing a course?  Unwanted cards showing from previous semesters?  Remember, the first and …

  Greetings!  Two weeks ago we sent a Tech Tip featuring LibGuides. Today, we are pleased to share that LibGuides integration with Canvas is complete!  Now you can easily add a link to Library resources …

This week’s tech tip highlights LibGuides and is brought to you by Mary Weppler, Public Services Librarian.  LibGuides is a platform that invites collaboration between librarians and instructors to meet the research needs of their …

We’ve been asked recently about how to add a rubric to an assignment in Canvas. It is easier to create rubrics in Canvas than in Turnitin, for which we are very grateful. Canvas will also …

This week’s Tech Tip is on the Canvas Link Validator.  This handy little tool checks all the links in your course and displays a list of any that aren’t working.  Not only that, but it …

Check out this document with suggestions on how to handle the multiple ways students can contact you in Canvas. -Lynn Hawley

Here’s another quick tip about the Gradebook in Canvas, this one focusing on why rocket ships might appear in your Gradebook and how to get rid of them. -Lynn Hawley

This week’s Tech Tip is on the Canvas DocViewer, a tool that allows you to make annotations and markups on assignment submissions. The DocViewer automatically appears for the teacher in SpeedGrader when a student has …

This tip is brought to you by Helen Graves, @One’s Course Design Specialist and the talent behind the Byte-sized Canvas video series. Over the past year, I’ve been asked a lot about the dash in …

The Online Education Initiative (OEI) Rubric suggests giving students an opportunity to give course feedback in an anonymous format. This gives you the opportunity to ask students questions that align with the rubric and helps …

  This is the first in a series of informational posts about different aspects of Canvas. Many of you visited the Professional Development Center during the variable flex days for help putting together your Canvas …