Course Set Up

Learning Intentions

Participants who complete this module will gain an understanding of the CSD style guide for their course navigation and homepage, how to create and set a home page for their course as well as how to find and use course templates that are shared in Canvas Commons.

 Success Criteria

Participants will know they are successful when they can:

• edit their course navigation.
• edit their course homepage.
• find and locate a course template in Canvas Commons.

Task: Edit your course navigation to Match CSD Standards.

The area to the left of the screen is called the course navigation. The course navigation needs to be customized for consistency among all Canyons School District teachers using Canvas. This consistency will help to provide a more uniform user experience for students. The course navigation needs to include the following elements and hide all others.

Task: Create and set a homepage for your Canvas course.

Pages are where you can put content and educational resources that are part of your course but don’t necessarily belong in an assignment, or that you want to refer to in multiple assignments. This is a place where you can include text, video, and links to your files. You can even make links to other pages. Pages can also be used as a collaboration tool where you can create class wikis and set specific user access for each page. Canvas keeps the entire history of the page so you can see how it changes over time.

In order to create your class homepage, you will need to work through the following steps.

1. Click on the "Pages" tab in the left sidebar navigation menu (NOTE: this button will be grayed out but it is still clickable.)
2. Click on the "View All Pages" button in the top right corner.
3. Click the "+Pages" button to create a new page.
4. Give your page a title ("Home Page" or "Front Page" work well.)
5. Click in the large open page editor field and add any content you need for your class.
6. Scroll to the bottom of the page and click the "Save" button.
7. Locate your home page and click the gray circle to the right of the page title: Once clicked (Published) the circle will turn green: 
8. Click on the gear icon next to the cloud icon for your home page. Select "Use as Front Page" from the list.
9. Your list of pages will now update and a new indicator will appear next to your Home Page to tell you that this page is being used as the Front Page for your course: 
10. Click on the "Home" tab in the left sidebar navigation menu.
11. Click on the  button in the right side of your screen.
12. Select "Pages Front Page" from the list and click "Save."

Additional Pages Tutorials

• What are Pages?Links to an external site.
• How do I use Draft State in Pages?Links to an external site.
• How do I create a new Page?Links to an external site.
• Where is the Front Page and how do I edit it?Links to an external site.

Canvas has created new templates that help you save time while still creating a well-designed course. Canyons now has access to these templates, and there are templates for a variety of levels. Learn how to view and import these templates below.

Template Basics

Templates provide you with the following sample components:

• Announcement
• Syllabus Page
• Microcredentials Page
• Canvas Overview and Resources Module (from Participant/Student Perspective)
• Welcome to the Course Module (aka a "Getting Started" introductory Module)
• Lesson Modules
  • Overview and To Do List Content Page
  • Presentation Content Page
  • Group Discussion
  • Individual Assignment
  • Quiz
  • Wrap-up and Looking Ahead Content Page
  • Ungraded Course Survey

Each page provides you (the instructor) with guidelines/suggestions as to how to use the sample. This text is often in bold and italics. When applicable, samples are also provided. Please be sure to unpublish and/or revise this material prior to providing student access. 

Template Icons & Banners

Template icons and banners are pre-loaded with a selection of course images. The icons and banners are available via the Course Files. These images can be added anywhere you have the Rich Content Editor (RCE). For more information on adding an image to a Canvas page via the Rich Content Editor, please review the following: Canvas Guide - How do I insert course images into the Rich Content Editor using the Content Selector?

Examples of the templates we have available

Finding and Importing a Template

Below are instructions to find templates in Canvas Commons and import them into your course.

1. Click on Commons in the blue navigation bar:

2. Type "template"  into the search bar and click the Filter button, and adjust the filter results to "Only Canyons School District Approved Resources" and check the box for templates. Doing this helps limit the search results to the Canyons School District templates.