Hello!
In this video I’m going to show you how to upload and organize your content in Canvas.
While there are a lot of methods to get your content into Canvas and share it with your students,
I’m going to cover the recommended process here at CWRU.
This process assumes that your materials are saved to your computer and that you’re building you Canvas course from scratch.
If this isn’t exactly the case, don’t worry!
Much of this is still relevant to designing your course.
To begin, let’s log-in to Canvas at canvas.case.edu and enter into a course.
The first area I’m going to cover is Files, which is an optional step for getting your stuff into Canvas.
If I click on Files from the course menu, I can see a list of any files I’ve uploaded into my Canvas site.
This is also where we can do a bulk upload of materials from my computer.
It’s important to note that the Files area only supports files, such as Word documents,
PDFs, Powerpoints, image files such as jpgs, and videos.
Other items, like written text and website URLs aren’t supported here.
We’ll talk about that in a minute.
For now, I’m going to do a bulk upload of my content by clicking on the Upload button, then selecting my files.
Alternatively, I can also drag-and-drop files into this area to upload them into Canvas.
I can track the progress of my uploads at the top of the screen.
Once they’re complete, the files will appear down below in the Files list.
I always recommend organizing the Files page, even if it’s not what students will be directly interacting with.
You can create folders, then drag and drop items into them.
This makes it easier to find content within your Canvas course, replace old versions of documents, and reuse materials in future courses.
A few minutes now will save you lots of time down the road!
I do want to note that by default, the Files area is not available to students.
If you want to make it available to students, please see the Canvas Guide for editing your course navigation.
Next up, let’s take a look at Pages.
Pages is also an optional area in Canvas, but it gives you flexibility in how you present content to students.
Let me select an example page that I’ve already created.
Pages act as a place to create content within Canvas.
You can post links to websites, embed YouTube videos, or even put together a table of contents for your Canvas course.
Let’s take a look at creating a page.
To do that, I’m going to head back to the main Pages area, then click on the +Page button.
From here, I get a place to name my page and a text box into which I can build content.
The rich content editor gives you lots of options for writing and modifying text and embedding content.
You can use the tools here to add math equations, pictures, or YouTube videos right into the text box.
Another cool feature is the content selector.
On most monitors, this appears on the right of the page, but it may be at the bottom of the page if you have a smaller screen.
The content selector lets you place links to areas of your Canvas course right into the text box.
I can also easily add files that I’ve uploaded to the Files section, which will create a
link to view or download the file right in the text box.
I can also find and insert images from Flickr, my computer, of the Files section of my site using the content selector.
As a quick example, I’m going to insert a video from YouTube.
I’m also going to type up some quick text and will ask students to check out the assignment and quiz I posted for this topic.
I’m first going to highlight the text I want to link.
Then using the content selector, I’m going to link those pieces of text directly to the corresponding area in my Canvas course.
Let me save and publish this, and let’s take a look!
You can see now that my page has been published, and clicking on the links takes me right to the area I linked to within Canvas.
Pages are very powerful and allow for creative organizing of your course content.
Finally, let’s take a look at Modules.
Modules is the main area for organizing your course content.
It brings together Files, Pages, and other content such as assignments and quizzes for your students to find.
To begin, let’s create a module by clicking on the +Module button.
Enter in a name for the module.
This can be anything you’d like to use to organize your course content.
For example, you could make a module for each week in your course, or by topics you cover during the semester, or even by types of materials.
I’m going to do that for my course.
To finish adding the module, choose if you want to lock it until a specific date, then click Add Module.
Modules can be thought of as folders, into which you can add and organize additional items.
To add content into a module, click on the + button at the top of the module.
This brings up the selection window, where we can choose what to add.
At the top of the window, use the drop-down to select what you want to add to the module.
The first two items, Assignment and Quiz, will let you add a link to an assignment or
quiz created in Canvas directly in your module.
The next item, Files, will let you choose a previously uploaded file or find a file on your computer to upload.
This is where the bulk upload from earlier makes things convenient;
if you select files that have already been added to the Files area of your course, you can add multiple files at once to the module.
Simply hold down the CTRL key on a Windows machine or the CMD key on a Mac to select multiple files at once.
In addition to these files, I’m also going to find a file on my computer I haven’t uploaded yet to my course.
I’m going to select New File, browse my computer, then add the file to the module.
Up next is the option to add a Content Page, which is a link to a Page that you’ve created.
I’m going to go ahead and select the Page I added earlier.
Selecting Discussion will add a link to a specific discussion board in your Canvas course.
Content Headers provide some labeling within the module; I’ll go ahead and add one now.
Next on the list is External URL, which allows you to place a link to a website right in your module.
Finally is the External Tool option, which is used for third-party applications that are integrated with Canvas.
If we take a look back at my module, I now have some files, my page, and a header.
Let’s take a moment to organize this stuff.
I can click and drag on any of these items to rearrange things.
I can also add some indenting to help organize things further.
To indent an item, click on the gear next to its name and increase the indent.
You can click on the gear again to increase the indent further, decrease the indent, edit,
rearrange, or remove the item.
The final thing I want to mention here is very important- the publish button.
You’ll notice that there are small cloud icons next to each item.
When the cloud is green with a checkmark, that item is available to students.
When the cloud is grey with an X, it is unavailable to students.
You can click on a cloud icon to toggle the visibility back and forth.
It’s important to note that you can also make an entire module unavailable by clicking at the cloud next to its name.
When you make a module unavailable, all of the items within it will not be available to students, despite the green clouds down below.
So before you leave the Modules page, it’s always a good idea to check your clouds to make sure they’re green and good to go!
And that’s it!
We’ve taken a look at the basics of adding stuff to your course using Files, Pages, and Modules.
For any questions or concerns, please contact either Canvas Support through the Help button in Canvas,
or the CWRU Service Desk at 368-HELP or at help.case.edu
Thanks for watching!