• From within your Canvas course, go to the url area of your browser and look for the course ID number. This is a six digit number that comes after the “https://canvas.emerson.edu/courses/”
• Once you’ve located the course ID number, remove everything in the address following it except for the backslash (/) and type in the word “undelete.” The new url will look something like this:
  https://canvas.emerson.edu/courses/861221/undelete
• Press Return.
• A series of recently deleted items will appear and give you the option to restore!

When we used this trick to recover the deleted quiz, not only did the quiz reappear, but all of the students’ submissions and their corresponding scores reappeared as well. Amazing!

According to the Canvas community forums, there are a few caveats to using this command:

• It is not fully supported and does not work 100% of the time.
• Only the last 25 items will show up on the restore list.
• If you restore a quiz that had student submissions, you need to make sure to restore the assignment as well, or else the submissions will not be restored.
• If something is not showing up on the restore page, it’s best to submit a ticket as there are additional things the technical support team can do. Contact itg@emerson.edu or click on the “Help” link in the upper right hand corner when you’re in Canvas.

Thank you, Canvas for being awesome!

While editing your assignment in Canvas, below the text entry field are a series of options – including Submission Type. Choosing “Online” will give you a series of options including: “Allow File Uploads.” Checking this off will bring up the “Restrict File Upload Types” option. This gives you a text entry field where you can enter whatever file types you wish to ALLOW. (A little backwards, I know.) So, whatever file type you enter will be allowed, while all others will be disallowed.

Don’t worry – if a student attempt to upload an incorrect file type – Canvas gives a big red warning that the specific file type they are attempting to upload is not allowed BUT, x, y, and z file types are allowed.

Worried you don’t know what file type to allow? Here’s a basic rundown of the most common file word editor file types:

.pdf – Portable Document Format. PDF’s are great because they can be read across different operating systems, and the format will stay the same. It’s like a snapshot of a document. PDF’s are always a safe bet if you are sending a document to someone and you have no idea what kind of word processer they use!

 .doc – Microsoft Word Document. Doc’s are another safe bet for sharing a document across different platforms. The older, more universal standard of Microsoft Word, it has fallen a bit by the wayside with the release of .docx

.docx – Office Open XML document. The new default when saving a Word document, .docx is Microsoft looking to make their product more standard with the rest of the world – that is to say, you can read it across different software platforms.

.pages – Apple iWork Pages document. Apple’s answer to Word, Pages is word editing software that is restricted to Mac operating systems only. Whereas you can use Word on both a Windows and an Apple computer, you cannot use Pages on Windows. If you have ever tried to open a .pages document, and you didn’t have Pages, you probably ran into some trouble. That’s because it’s not a true “file.” Basically Pages is a great tool – but anyone using it in college should probably learn how to export to .docx or .pdf pretty quickly.

.txt – Plaintext file. Exactly what it sounds like. It is simply to write with, not doing anything fancy. There is little to no formatting with .txt files. And they can be read almost universally by any software or operating system.

.rtf – Rich Text Format. Think a step up from .txt, .rtf is also a file type that is widely accessible.

.odt (.odf) – OpenDocument. You’ve probably heard rumblings about Web Standardization and Open Source – this is more or less a child of that effort. This is something that the creators hope would become a universal standard – accessible to everyone – no matter where or what they are using. If you or your students are savvy enough to get a product like OpenOffice (think a free, slightly more basic Word) – they will probably not be sending you .odt files, but .doc or .pdf.

.html – HyperText Markup Language. The language of the Internet! (Basically the backend of any website.) Students probably won’t be ever submitting this kind of file unless you are having them create websites and want to make sure they are closing their </p> tags.

Something to be aware of with File Restrictions…

In Canvas, the field where you enter your accepted file types is a bit finicky. It does not want any spaces between the file types – just a comma. So if you want only .doc and .pdf – you would put in: doc,pdf – NOT – doc, pdf. The reason for this is simply to avoid sending extra information – why waste the space?!

Yes, those same devices that are always a distraction to students in class, can actually be a boon when incorporated into your teaching strategies. Since these phones and tablets are more-or-less attached to your students, it’s a great way to ensure that their education is pocket-sized and always accessible, (even if it’s running in the background of an Angry Birds binge).

This post will give you an insight into how your students can interact with your Canvas course on their mobile devices, and offer you some suggestions on how to make your course shine on many different types of mobile platforms. A bit of a disclaimer: all of the screenshots in this post are of the Canvas app optimized for iPad, as I am using an iPad to write this post. However, the same workflows and strategies will works for students using iPhones, as well as Samsung, Motorola, and other Google-based tablets and smartphones.

Freedom Isn’t Free, But The Canvas App Is!

Getting the mobile version of Canvas is as simple as doing a Google search. Depending on the type of phone a student has, they’ll either search within the Apple App Store, or the Android Marketplace for “Canvas”. In both cases, the Canvas app will be one of the first choices. Students download it directly to their device, and upon launch they log into their account.

A Place For Everything, And Everything In Its Place

The Canvas app presents students with a graphical representation of all their courses. (See above.) Upon tapping the course they wish to inspect, they will be provided a menu to access the primary content of that course.

Announcements, Schedule, Discussions, People, Files and Pages are all laid out on the top menu, nice and easy to find. Each of these will allow them to interact with that component as if they were on the full canvas.emerson.edu site (aka on their computer). The Announcements tool within the app will cause the student’s mobile device to ring, beep, or vibrate whenever you have sent off an Announcement for the class, and they can read the entire Announcement right then and there.

Can The Dog Eat Your Homework When It’s On The Internet?

The answer is no, and with the Schedule tool, students can see Assignments that are due and even upload their assignments directly from the app.

You’ll notice the list of all the Assignments on the left. Students can simply click on the Assignment, view it, and even submit and/or respond to comments. A large student population commutes to and from class, and having the ability to do classwork while on the train or bus has been well-received!

The Discussion Continues In The Classroom, In The Dorm, Or On The Common

These tools will allow your students to contribute to Canvas discussions on the go, and will allow for threaded replies at all hours of the day! Don’t be surprised by any late night conversations (as we know students don’t sleep).

The Kitchen Sink Never Looked So Good

Why email the class a document when you could use Canvas? Course files are extremely easy to distribute to your students, and can be found under Files. Your students can read and download PDFs, PowerPoints, and Word files on the go. In fact, they could even edit them with separate document creation apps available for their mobile platform of choice. The best part of the Canvas app, however, is that it doesn’t require any additional design work on your behalf. Simply design your course on canvas.emerson.edu, and your hard work will be carried over to the back pockets of your students.

• Navigate to your Canvas course
• Click on Grades and then on the graded assignment to see the Submission Details view (see below)
• Click on the preview icon to the right of your submitted document:

  

• You can click and drag on the lower right hand corner of the preview window (see below)

• Or, you can download a file with the inline comments by clicking the download icon:

  

With Canvas now fully implemented, you’ll find one more use for your Google Apps account… I should say your Emerson Google Apps account (google.emerson.edu), not your personal Gmail account.

We’ve been busy testing how the two play together when used at the same time, within the same browser, and we feel it can be a bit convoluted. To simplify your life a bit, we recommend either:

a) opening Canvas in a different browser than what you check your Gmail in, or

b) simply logging out of your personal Gmail account before you log into Canvas.

Both of these will save you a lot of frustration if you decide you want to use the collaboration tools available in Canvas. As always, feel free to call the HelpDesk at x8080 if you have any additional questions.

1. To start, hover over the drop-down and then click on “Customize.”
2. This will bring up a checklist of all your courses – any checked will appear, while unchecked will not.
3. Check off the courses you would prefer to show up, and then exit out of the menu by clicking the “X.”

Please note: On the bottom of the drop-down is a link will let you “View all Courses.”

At the bottom of the screen, the Course Setup Checklist will appear with a “Publish Course” button. Click “Publish Course” [2]:

A message will appear at the top of your screen confirming the publishing of your course:

Enrolled students can now view the course! They will be able to participate in your course 1 week before the semester starts until it ends. After that, your course will be in a read-only state for students.

WebCT dies with 2012. Emerson opens on January 2nd to Canvas!

Back up your WebCT files | Learn about Canvas

Dec. 20th 2-3pm in Walker 418.

Register at: http://bit.ly/Ug2NnB

Need help getting your stuff off of WebCT? Come to Open Labs in Walker 403 from 9am-5pm on Friday December 21st.