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DTL Spotlight

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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check Adjust events and due dates and choose to "Shift dates" or "Remove dates" to prevent grade sync issues and outdated deadlines.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:

student notebook new feature

  • 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: accessibility tool report

  • 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!

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The modernized Mastery Connect user experience delivers a sleek, responsive interface rebuilt for full accessibility (WCAG 2.1 AA). Redesigned Trackers, Assessments, and Curriculum Maps feature faster workflows, keyboard navigation, enhanced screen reader support, seamless Canvas integration, and simple view toggling for educators.

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Due to funding changes, Utah is transitioning to the Nearpod Platform Package. Nearpod remains free, and you will not lose your created lessons, but access to the premade Nearpod Lesson Library, Math/Social Studies Programs, and shared School/District Libraries will end.

🛑 Teacher Action Required By June 30

To keep your instructional materials for next year, you must manually save them to your personal account:

  • Move Shared Content: Copy any crucial lessons out of your School/District Shared Libraries and into your personal account.

  • Add Library Lessons: Download any global Nearpod Library lessons you want by adding them to your account and making a quick edit (e.g., renaming it to "The 2026 Olympics - Smith").

  • Save & Exit: As detailed below, always use the "Save & Exit" feature to fully preserve your content, activities, and future editing capabilities.

Refer to the following guide for best practices on organizing your folders and refreshing your content before leaving for the summer.

Save Nearpod Lessons