>>Jena Fahlbush: Let's add an image to our similes and metaphors assignment in Canvas.
In the main editing box I have my activity choices here in the editor, and in the first
activity choice I’m going to read the second sentence, “You'll find a preview of the Jamboard.”
This activity choice brings students to a Jamboard that they can use to sort similes and metaphors,
and I want to insert a preview at the bottom of this assignment so that they can visually
match the preview of the Jamboard to the location that they are sent to using the
hyperlink. What I’ll do is scroll to the bottom below the third choice and click into the text.
If a new line is not available, I would just click at the end of my third choice and enter
down. A double enter will get rid of that number 4 auto bullet. Now, I’m ready to insert my image.
To do that I’m going to go to the center of my toolbar and select the image drop down. I have
three options- one to upload an image, two for course images, or three for user images. Course
images and user images would be files already added into Canvas. I want to upload a new image.
It opens a new a new pop-up is opened, and now I can select an image from my computer,
Unsplash, or from a URL in the upper left. I’m going to keep it on computer, and I want to
upload an image by either dragging or dropping it right into this upload space or I can click
in this space to open my files on my computer. I’m clicking to open my files, because I’ve
already taken a screenshot of the Jamboard and saved it to my desktop. So, here I’m searching
my files and I’m going to select Jamboard and then select open in the bottom right corner.
I am presented with a preview of my image in the Canvas image uploader and as I scroll down,
I see that I have some options for attributes and alt text is listed as one of those attributes that
I need to take care of. If I was adding an image purely for decoration; there was no important
information that I would want any student to get, I could click that this is a decorative
image which grays out the alt text box. This is not a decorative image and most of the time your
images are not decorative. They are important to your students’ content, so rather than clicking
decorative- decorative image, I will select the text box for alt text and I will type, “Preview of
Jamboard.” That is all I would want a student to get out of this whether they could see the image
or whether they were hearing a description of the image read aloud.
Also, you have some display
options whether or not to embed the image, which is the default or to display text link which will
open the image in a new tab. Typically, you're going to embed the image for your assignment,
but if you have a reason to display it in another link, that's an option for you. Either way, make
sure you provide accurate alt text, which is going to be a concise description of the image, so that
they can get the same meaning from the image that users who can see the image would glean from it.
Alt text is also important because it will display for all students if the image
fails to load. Once I’m finished in the uploader, I can click submit in the bottom right.
I’m now presented with that image right in the bottom of my assignment where I had clicked
into the text. If you would like to edit the location of your image, you can click on it and
in the toolbar toward the right hand side there is an align button. If I drop that down, I have
options to left align, center align, or right align and I’m going to choose the center align
for my visual preference. I also will note that when the item is clicked upon and live there is
another box that appears that says image options and that will bring up a right-hand sidebar to
review the alt text in any of those attribute items that you gave to this image when you first
uploaded it. Now, that image will be ready for your students once the assignment is published.