Communicate with Students

Introduction

This page will help you learn how to use the three main communication tools available in Canvas: announcements, conversations (Inbox), and conferences. Not all courses will use all of these tools, so feel free to skip any resources that are not relevant to your specific needs.

On This Page:

    1. Prepare your students for effective communication in Canvas
    2. Create an announcement
    3. Create and manage conversations (Inbox)
    4. Create online conferences

 

Prepare your students for effective communication in Canvas

Learn how students can optimize their individual notification settings to be sure they are receiving important updates throughout your course:

 

Create an announcement

Read or watch a short introduction to learn how you can use announcements to communicate with your entire class:

00:07: What are announcements? 00:09: In course navigation click the announcements link 00:13: Course announcements display on the announcements index page 00:17: To communicate with students about the logistics of a course instructors 00:21: can add an announcement. Instructors can format and add content to 00:25: announcements using the rich content editor features. 00:29: Instructors can also use announcement options to allow others to reply comment 00:33: enable podcast feeds allow liking and to specify 00:37: a time frame for the announcement. 00:40: As soon as an instructor creates an announcement canvas takes care of notifying 00:44: students according to their preferred notification settings. 00:48: There are also unread and read indicators next to the announcements. 00:53: Instructors have the option of feeding posts from a blog or other information sources 00:57: directly into their announcements page using RSS. 01:00: RSS feeds can be filtered by keyword to prevent irrelevant content from 01:04: entering the course. Students who use RSS readers can 01:08: subscribe to course announcements outside of canvas 01:13: As an instructor use announcements to Remind 01:17: your students what they need to accomplish to stay on track Point students to 01:21: internal and external resources that will help them achieve course outcomes. 01:24: Leave a message for the entire class with video or audio comments. 01:29: Celebrate Student Success and important events that may be of interest to your students. 01:34: Feed a custom RSS fee related to the topic of the course to your students 01:38: automatically share blog posts written by your students on WordPress 01:42: blogger Etc with custom RSS feeds. 01:47: As a student you may be able to view and reply to course announcements. 01:51: You may also be able to add announcements in a student group. 01:56: This guide covered announcements

Announcements Overview video, 2m 5s

Practice creating an announcement in your course sandbox using either of the following tutorials as a guide:

NOTE: When copying announcements from a Master Course to a Live Course, be aware of the following behaviors:

  • If the course is unpublished when the announcements are imported, they will not appear on the Course Activity Stream, but are visible under Announcements.
  • If the course is published when the announcements are copied over, they are visible in the Course Activity Stream.
  • If you create announcements in a Master Course, set the delay posting option. When you copy the announcements over to the Live Course and select the adjust due dates option, they are not available to students.

 

Create and manage conversations (Inbox)

Canvas' "conversations" or "Inbox" tool is an internal course mail feature that allows you to send messages to individuals or student groups without leaving Canvas.

Watch the following video tutorial to learn more about using the Inbox in Canvas:

00:00: How do I use the Inbox as an Instructor? 00:03: In Global Navigation, click the Inbox link. If the Inbox link includes a numbered indicator, the indicator shows how many unread messages you have in your Inbox. Once you read the new messages, the indicator will disappear. 00:18: The toolbar includes global message options 00:22: To load conversations, filter your messages by course or group and type. Filtering by type lets you filter messages by Inbox, Unread, Starred, Sent, Archived, and Submission Comments. 00:37: You can also search for conversations by user in the Search by user field. 00:42: Once you have selected a conversation, you can use the other options in the toolbar to: Reply to a conversation. Reply-all to a conversation. Archive a conversation. Delete a conversation. You can also use the More Options icon to forward, mark a conversation as read or unread, and star conversations. 01:03: Conversations for your selected course and Inbox filter appear in the left Inbox panel. 01:09: To star a conversation, hover over the conversation and click the star to the right of the conversation. 01:16: When you select a conversation, all messages in the conversations thread appear in the right Inbox panel. 01:23: Within each conversation, you can reply, reply-all, forward, or delete the entire conversation thread. You can also hover over an individual message and use the same commands within the individual message. 01:37: To select multiple messages to archive, delete, mark as read, mark as unread, or star, click the check box for each message. You can also press the command key (Mac) or the control key (Windows) while clicking each message you want to select. In the Inbox toolbar, click the desired option. 01:58: This guide covered how to use the Inbox as an instructor.

Inbox video, 2m 2s

Use the following tutorial to learn how to create and manage conversations in your Canvas Inbox:

NOTE: Your profile and notification settings will allow you to receive alerts about new messages via your chosen email address, and you have the option to respond to Canvas messages using the reply function in your email client. However, that option does not always function as expected. Our recommendation at this time is to return to your Canvas inbox to respond to any messages directly from within Canvas.

 

Create online conferences

Conferences are a feature within Canvas that can be used for live online interactions with students including virtual lectures, virtual office hours, and online student group meetings. There are two different options for holding conferences in Canvas:

  1. Use the Zoom Learning Tool (PSU resource)
  2. Use BigBlueButton Links to an external site. (External resource)