Benefits of the Canvas Inbox

[MrsLauraMetz]

I would really like to hear your personal experience with the Canvas inbox in regards to two points. The first being how it is mostly used between parents, students and teachers. Who uses it the most and for what purposes? Secondly,  in your district are teachers expected to check their outlook/gmail, Synergy/SIS mailbox, and Canvas mail? Is it just one more thing to do or are you finding benefits galore!? (We are just starting with Canvas.)

[WilMeiners]

One value to the messaging within Canvas is that you can "Message Students Who...." when you are grading. This message is then sent to the students and observers, so all student and their observers could be easily messaged if they have a missing assignment. One nice feature is that if you receive an email notification of a message in Canvas, you can reply directly from the email.

[MrsLauraMetz]

Thanks! All good points. I am so glad you can reply directly from the email! We can't do that Synergy ParentVUE mail.

[JamesSekcienski]

I agree with @WilMeiners on the benefit of the "Message Students Who..." feature in the gradebook.  That has been a very valuable tool for quickly communicating with students about reminders for missing work and/or encouraging them to review my feedback, make corrections, and re-submit for an opportunity to improve their grade.

I also like that when students send me a message, it will also reference the course they are enrolled in.  When teaching multiple sections of the same course and they aren't cross-listed, this helps save time in tracking down the correct course to go to if a student is asking for help with something within the course.

While students can contact me via email since it is shared in the Syllabus, I still encourage students to contact me via the Canvas Inbox.  This helps me try to centralize my communication with students through the Canvas Inbox.  With notifications enabled, I can also set-up a rule in Outlook to send notifications to a folder to help keep my email Inbox organized more too.  Sometimes my Inbox gets filled with other messages, so it is nice when I can ensure I have replied to all student messages when they are centralized in the Canvas Inbox.  When I have unread messages, it also shows an indicator so I know I have messages to review while working in Canvas.

Another added benefit is that using the Canvas Inbox for communication with students will make it so Canvas can more accurately track teacher-student interactions.  When communicating through email outside of Canvas (not replying to a Canvas Inbox notification), this data isn't track by Canvas.  Thus, by using the Canvas Inbox, it will show on the Student Interactions Report and in New Analytics about a teacher's communication with students.  Admin could also potentially use this data as a part of monitoring teacher engagement with students.

[MrsLauraMetz · Accepted solution]

Thanks for your feedback! This is the new post I wrote about the Inbox... since our teachers have email and Synergy mail... they need time to figure out which workflow options work best! I had included links to trainings from some of the below topics but took them out since they won't work if you are not in our district. 

Although Synergy ParentVUE remains the primary communication tool for teachers, the Canvas Inbox is becoming an important part of teacher workflows, especially for assignment-related communication. We you begin using the Inbox for assignments, potentially later this year or next, it will offer a convenient way for you to engage with students.

To help guide students and parents, teachers can indicate their preferred method of contact on their Canvas course homepage. This ensures parents know how to best reach out to you, whether through email, Synergy, or Canvas.

The Canvas Inbox offers several advantages:

• Forwarding messages to your email, allowing direct responses from your inbox.

• The "Message Students Who..." feature in the gradebook allows you to quickly remind students about missing assignments, review feedback, and encourage resubmissions.

• When students send messages, the course reference is automatically included, which saves time when teaching multiple sections of the same class that are not cross-listed.

Centralizing communication through the Canvas Inbox also makes it easier to track teacher-student interactions. Using the Inbox ensures that all correspondence is logged in Canvas and can be reflected in the Student Interactions Report and New Analytics. This data can be valuable for monitoring engagement and improving student support.

Don't forget: You can adjust your notification settings to receive messages through external channels and set up filters in Outlook to keep your inbox organized. Please adjust your notifications , instead of deleting your work email out of your account settings.