The instructions for the hands-on assignment on Discussion did not include some of the other options for this tool. These additional options allow for assessment of Discussion and greater control over how and when students use Discussion.
Like content tools, a Discussion's can be set as published or unpublished (draft) to control visibility by students. Discussions can be set to be available at a particular time, which encourages time on task by limiting the period students can contribute to a particular topic. Note that a Discussion added to a Module inherits the Module's date restrictions and contributions can be set as a Module requirement. Once its availability ends it can be read but not replied to. Also a Discussion can be locked manually at any time.
Canvas distinguishes between "threaded" and "focused" discussions. The difference is that focused discussions only allow two layers of nesting (a response to the prompt and one reply) whereas threaded discussions allow for as many layers as the participants use. You can also decide whether students have to post to the discussion before seeing their classmates' replies.
A Discussion can be pinned, which will keep it at the top of the Discussions page. Liking can be allowed, giving participants a chance to indicate which posts they think are the best. The discussion can be sorted by likes. And Group Discussions can be created, which provides a valuable online space for group projects.
Finally, discussions can be graded. For some students, making discussion a part of the class grade will encourage them to make participation a higher priority.
While discussions provide an excellent tool for discourse within the class, there is also a need for personal communications. Students and instructors may have confidential questions or a need to exchange information that the rest of the class does not need to see. Also a user might want to send a message to a group of classmates. The Conversations tool meets those needs, and it is accessed via the Inbox link In Global Navigation.
Users can decide how they receive notice that they have a new Conversations message. Notifications settings include Conversations, and the default setting is to email immediately when there is a new message in the Inbox. This can be changed to use a text message. In email, a user can reply to the Inbox message from the external email. Also the Inbox icon changes to indicate that a user has new Conversation messages
A final benefit of using the Conversations tool is for a distance education class. If the instructor has decided that Conversations is part of the way that regular and effective contact is being conducted in the class, the fact that the Conversations tool retains copies of sent messages makes it easy to document its use for this purpose. How regular and effective contact is conducted is an academic and professional matter.
Tools like Discussion, Announcements, and the Calendar are all ways of communicating asynchronously with students, meaning not at the same time. Asynchronous communication helps distance education fulfill its potential in the area of expanding access, as the tyranny of time is often why students take online classes.
Canvas also offers options for synchronous communication. This places the instructor and students (or just students in some cases) in the same online location where they can immediately respond to each other, as they can in a face-to-face classroom. The Chat tool is an always-on, text-only page within Canvas that anyone enrolled in a class can use. The option to add Chat to Course Navigation is available on the Settings page. Note that all comments posted to the Chat tool are recorded and they cannot be deleted.
A more fully functional tool for synchronous communication is Conferences, which includes a full suite of tools for live online lectures. However, the native Canvas tool is not recommended at this time. It is integrated with a program called BigBluebutton, which has not been evaluated to see if it meets California standards for universal design. Also the default license is for recordings that cannot be downloaded and are retained for only two weeks, so an institution would need its own contract to make the tool usable by students interested in reviewing archives of recorded sessions.
A better option for synchronous communication for California's community colleges is to link out to the tools CCC Confer and ConferNow, which use the technology platforms Blackboard Collaborate and Zoom, respectively. These tools can be integrated via LTI with Canvas and are supported by the state chancellor's office. Please note that ConferNow is not yet certified as universally accessible.
ConferNow is the tool we have been using in this class for our weekly Canvas Klatch.
User Management
It is likely that the student users enrolled in your Canvas courses will be there through a connection with your college's student information system, so you will not need to add and drop students within this system. The details of that connection of course will be known by your local system administrator.
Within a class there are several tools related to user management. On the People page you can see a list of enrolled students and perform actions including viewing your interactions with an individual student and a student's activity within a course. Depending on the setup of your local server you may be able to see a student's user details.
On the People page is also a link to the Groups tool, which you can use to divide a class into groups for projects. Options there include setting up groups automatically or manually, letting students self-enroll in groups, and assign a student leader to a Group.
The Collaborations tool can be combined with Groups to make a work space in Google Docs that can be used for those students to work together on a project for class. Note that it requires that each collaborator have a Google account which they would connect to their Canvas login. Instructors can also create a Collaboration and invite specific students to participate.
Tracking whether students come to class is part of user management, and Canvas has a tool for that called Attendance. Students cannot see the Attendance link if added to Course Navigation, though the tool does create a grade entry that is updated immediately as the instructor takes attendance.