Day 3: Guides to Get Started with Canvas

[Chris_Hofer]

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On the third day of Canvasmas, the Canvas Community gave to me: three “Getting Started” tours of Canvas...

When you start something new, it can sometimes be hard to know where to begin. For example, I’m a big fan of board games (we’re not talking the normal ones like “Monopoly”, “Clue”, “Sorry”, etc. … although those are fun, too). My collection has grown over the past couple of years, and often the games come with lots of rules. Lots and lots of rules. In fact, my “Star Wars: Imperial Assault” game I recently bought came with four (yes four) rulebooks: one labeled “Campaign Guide” (44 pages), one labeled “Rules Reference Guide (28 pages) that contains all the terminology and answers questions you may have during game play, one labeled “Skirmish Guide” (8 pages) for two-player games, and one labeled “Learn to Play - Read This First” (16 pages). Ah ha! I know where to begin! Now to make sense of it all...

When a school moves to a new Learning Management System (LMS) such as Canvas, it can be difficult to know where to begin. There are so many things that need to be considered. How will enrollments get processed from our SIS to Canvas? How will course shells be created? Will we set up a “Master Term” where we house a “master” of every course we offer online? What kinds of data and reports can we get out of Canvas? Where can we get help and support? The list goes on and on.

If you’ve never seen this part of the Canvas Community website before, I would like to introduce you to three excellent "Getting Started" resources found at: Canvas Getting Started. From here, you can select the role (Admin, Instructor, or Student) that best describes you. Once you have selected a role, you can browse through the written Guides or even watch a short video tutorial of a specific feature of Canvas. One of the coolest things about the written and video Guides is that you can leave your feedback and/or questions at the bottom of any of them, and someone from the Community or even a Canvas Docs Team member will reply to you.

I hope you’re having fun reading our “12 Days of Canvasmas” entries! Happy Holidays!