About CCAPS Academic Technology and Design

Learn more about what the Academic Technology and Design (ATD) team does to support faculty and students - CCAPS-ATD: What We Do.

Tutorials and Tips

Getting Assistance from CCAPS-ATD

To reach out to us if you have any more questions or you need assistance with making additions or changes to your course site, please use the CCAPS-ATD Learning Management Assistance form.

ATD Faculty Stories

Preparation for Remote Teaching

If you are teaching a blended or face-to-face course in the Fall semester, be prepared to teach remotely. With the continued rise of COVID-19, we need to prepare for the possibility of remote instruction.

This site will provide you with information about how to utilize core tools for basic remote instruction, how to use these tools, and where to go for support.

If you are teaching an online course, your course is designed with online components already, but you may want to take a look at some of the resources below on Zoom and how to hold an online office appointment with your students.

This page is based on the University’s Keep Teaching with Canvas resource site.

Get Started

Tools needed

  • A computer or tablet
  • Internet access
  • microphone (e.g. - earbuds with a built-in mic)
  • webcam 

Access Canvas (the UMN's Learning Management System)

  • Go to UMN Canvas  page and sign in with your UMN username and password.
  • Your Canvas course site is located in Canvas Courses menu.
Course location in Canvas

Move your Syllabus Online

  • Upload your syllabus to your Canvas course site. Most CCAPS Canvas course sites include the course syllabus. If you find that you don't see your syllabus in your course site, please reach out to us by filling out the CCAPS-ATD Learning Management Assistance form.

Communicate with your Students

UMN email

Use your UMN Gmail account and sign in with your U of MN Internet ID and password.

Canvas Communication Tools

In your Canvas course site, you can communicate with your students using various tools. Here is a list of Canvas communication tools:

Send email to your students from Canvas using the Canvas Inbox.

More info:

Announcements allow instructors to broadcast information to all members of a course.

  • How do I add an Announcement in a course?
  • Please note - students can customize how they receive notifications from Canvas, so make sure to direct students to change their notifications to receive Announcements notifications right away.

 

More info: 

Zoom is the University’s web conferencing tool that supports and enables real-time conversations.

Consider using Zoom to hold virtual office hours or full class online meetings when needed. Please don’t assume you need to use Zoom to meet with your class in real-time for all of your remaining class sessions. Use Zoom sparingly. Take a look at the following section on Conduct Your Class Online for more in depth strategies about how to use some of the common tools within Canvas to build discussions and reflective assignments that students can do asynchronously.

Login to Your UMN Zoom Account

More info:

Conduct Your Class Online

Assignments are a place to provide instructions/due date, and accept online submissions (i.e. files, images, text, URLs, etc.). 

Creating assignments in Canvas using the Assignment tool is really pretty simple to do. Once your assignments are in Canvas, students can submit their work to the Canvas Assignment. Building Canvas Assignments offers you the benefit of using the Canvas Speedgrader to view all your students’ submissions in one spot and do your grading. More information about the Speedgrader is available in the following section: Grading. The ATD Team can assist you with this effort.

 

If you are uncomfortable working with ATD to build assignments in your Canvas course site, you can still have students submit work to you through email. This method is less efficient, but ultimately, it’s your choice.

 

How do I create an assignment?

 

More info:


Note: When creating an online assignment, be sure to change the submission type to Online.

  • Format links in the Syllabus Document that is linked to Home Page
  • Place the resource in the Assignment or Discussion Description
  • Post resources in Canvas Announcements

 

How do I upload a file to a course?

Put links directly into Announcements, Assignments, Quizzes, Discussions or Pages

 

When adding resources and links to your Canvas course site it’s important to make sure your content is accessible.

Some basic rules for accessibility follow:

  • Use a controlled vocabulary. aka: Use the same name for an item throughout the site. If you called it Discussion 1 when you created it, call it Discussion 1 when you refer to it or link it elsewhere. This also applies to your outside links! 

  • Proximity is usually the best choice. Place resources near the activities that use them so students don’t have to go hunting for what they need. There are exceptions to this rule, but if you are creating a basic site this is pretty much going to be a standard for you.

  • One best place for everything. Try not to link the same item in multiple places. That gets confusing!

  • Try to create course rhythms. If your course will be online for multiple weeks, try to keep things in the same order every week. That way students start to expect a similar agenda week to week.

  • If you’re providing documents or study notes, Use Headers and Bullets where appropriate. Screen-readers interpret headers and bullets differently from paragraph text. Using them will help students who rely on screen-readers organize their thoughts more efficiently.

For more information on making content accessible refer to the Accessible U website.

 

Discussions allow for interactive communication.  Users can participate in a conversation with an entire class or small group. Discussions can also be created as an assignment for grading purposes (and seamlessly integrated with the Canvas Gradebook), or simply serve as a forum for topical and current events. 

 

How do I create a discussion as an instructor?

 

More info: 

 

The University recommends using Kaltura for recording short videos for your course, like short lecture presentations, video announcements, and even video feedback on your students’ work.

 

 

As you record your content, Kaltura captions your video, which is a great starting point for ensuring your video is accessible. Sometimes auto-generated captions are not accurate and require additional editing. Editing captions in Kaltura is pretty straightforward and we have more information below in the description.

Library Resources and Services

Grading in Canvas

SpeedGrader allows you to view and grade student assignment submissions in one place. Canvas accepts a variety of document formats and even URLs as assignment submissions. Some document assignments can be marked up for feedback directly within the submission. You can also provide feedback to your students with text or media comments.

 

Canvas Community: How do I use SpeedGrader?

 

More info: 

If you want to give students extra time to finish their assignments, you can do that by granting due date extensions on Canvas Assignments and Discussions.

 

Granting a Due Date Extension

Submit your final grades to PeopleSoft

How to Upload your Grades