Set Up Modules

[This is a guided explanation of how to get started with Canvas for faculty members who have been making minimal use of Canvas so far. The following pages detail how to set up a very basic site, and once you have done this confidently you will be ready to take any next steps you wish to take.]

Let’s start very basic:  these instructions will help you to get set up and interacting with students, in a basic way, for these two weeks.

Access Canvas from the Castleton portal.  When you click on the Canvas link at the center of the page, you will see a list of your courses. Choose the one you intend to work on.  You should see this.

Some faculty who are already working with Canvas, using the gradebook, for example, may see a page like the one on the above right.  They need to change the landing page so that the module page (pictured on the left) is the first one that students see when they log on.  (This is called the “home page.”)  Look to the top right of the page for a button that reads “Choose Home Page.”  Click on the button.  When a box appears asking what should be your home page, select “Course Modules.” Your home page should set to a page that has two big light green icons like the one on the left.

In Canvas, you present your work to students in groupings called “modules.”  We suggest that you plan to use one module for each week.

Add a module.  To do this, click on the “+Module”  button.

When the box appears, give the module a name (e. g. Week 9, March 23 – March 30). The point is to make it easy for students to find the work that you will be asking them to do during that week.  You can edit the module name later by clicking on the right-hand button with three stacked dots and selecting “edit” (see above, right)

Add a module for the next week, and so on.

Your next step is to add elements to your module.  You will probably be using pages, files, assignments and maybe discussions.  Here is a very simple way to think about how to do it:

If you wrote the letter in the last step on planning your instruction, then you should present that letter to your students in a “page.  To do that,  click on the “+”  button at the top of the module (see below).  You will see a box that gives you options of element to “add”.  In the top drop down menu, select “page”.  The click on “New Page” and give your page a title.  Then “Add Item” to save it.

This will create a blank page. the title  to open the page and click on the “edit” button at the top of the page to open an editing window.  You can copy the letter and paste it into the page.  And then save it.

You could also add the letter as a “file.” Follow the same process to add an element, select file from the “Add” dropdown menu, and then upload a file.   Students will then be able to download and open it.

Your next step is to add an assignment.