Back-to-School with Canvas: Essential Updates & Features

Welcome to a new school year! To help you prepare your courses and make the most of Canvas, here is a quick round-up of course setup tips, available support resources, and newly released features rolling out by August 15th.

🔁 Course Setup Reminder: Importing Content

When setting up your course for the new term, use the Course Import tool to copy content over from previous courses:

1. Navigate to Course Settings and choose Import Course Content.
2. Under Select Content Type, choose Copy a Canvas Course.
3. Select whether to import All content or Select specific content.
4. Important: Under Options, check Adjust events and due dates and choose to "Shift dates" or "Remove dates" to prevent grade sync issues and outdated deadlines.

🆘 Need Help & Technical Support?

If you run into questions or issues while working in Canvas, help is always just a click away via the global navigation menu (question mark icon):

1. Search the Canvas Guides: Search through step-by-step tutorials to find quick answers.
2. Report a Problem: Directly report a glitch or issue if Canvas misbehaves.
3. Training Services Portal: Access self-paced video training courses and webinars.
4. Local Support: Reach out directly to your district instructional coach or technology specialist!

✨ New Features (Rolling Out by Aug 15th)

📓 Student Notebook

Canvas is introducing a built-in Notebook tool to help students stay organized directly within their course pages:

• Take Notes & Highlight: Students can take notes, highlight important text, and mark items as "Important" or "Unclear" while reviewing course content.
• Reactions: Add instant reactions to lesson materials.
• Centralized View: Students can review all their compiled notes, highlights, and reactions in a dedicated Notebook tab in the course navigation.

♿ Course Accessibility Checker

Designing accessible course materials is now easier than ever with the dedicated Course Accessibility Checker: 

• Whole-Course Scanning: Scan Canvas-created content across your entire course to identify, remediate, and validate accessibility issues (such as missing alt text, low color contrast, or incorrect table headers).
• Fix Wizard: Easily step through flagged issues and apply quick fixes or automated remediations directly from the report view.
• On-Demand Updates: Click Update report at any time to re-scan and ensure your content meets accessibility standards for all learners.

Need assistance setting up these new features in your classroom? Reach out to your instructional coaching specialist!