Preparing Your Canvas: Signs and Wonders

Note: This post is part of a series originally posted to the Canvas community blogs a few years ago. I am now hosting a copy here to ensure they remain available as Instructure updates their community portal. Some of the articles referenced below may no longer be available.

This is the eighth entry in my Preparing Your Canvas series, documenting NKU's transition from Blackboard to Canvas. If you want to start from the beginning, here's the rest in chronological order:

Once the initial, panicked rush at the start of the Fall semester subsided we had a chance to take a breath. Although we continued our daily training offerings, there wasn't anything new to add to the design team's plate for the transition. Whew. Now that we've passed the midterm I thought this would be a good chance to share some of the digital signage we're using to advertise Canvas! Signs are cool, right?

Before we go on though, a warning: if you're from Instructure's marketing group, you might want to look away. I'm sure this is the kind of stuff that gives a brand manager nightmares. (how fitting for Halloween)

A quote from a professor saying "This is easily the best training I've had at NKU. Ever."

Let's start with the newest sign - this one is about to go out from Marketing. This quote came from one of the faculty working her way through our workshop series. As soon as she said it, I thought "Dang, this has to go up somewhere for people to see!" Since our training isn't mandatory, building interest in our resources is crucial. However, I think that kona@richland.edu makes a strong argument for mandatory training in her post Canvas Instructor Training and Student Orientation‌. Would I make training mandatory? Yes. But I'm a monster.

A table of statistics about NKU and Canvas. Over 70 Canvas trainings offered. Over 300 faculty enrolled in Canvas 101. Over 670 courses currently being taught in Canvas. At the bottom of the sign is the link cite.nku.edu_facstaff_canvas.png

We currently have this sign in rotation, and plan to have it up for the entire school year. We want to encourage faculty to move as early as they feel comfortable. We also want to make it explicitly clear that our old LMS isn't accessible after May. Although its been said in emails and announcements, its hard to over-emphasize a critical deadline like this. (I think this sign is my favorite).

We're getting to the point where we have some good numbers to show for our transition. So let's show them off! Although there wasn't an elegant way to highlight this in the sign, we have 670 unique courses in Canvas. That's not including multiple sections of the same course. Now that I've written this, I suppose I could've just put "unique" instead of "active," huh?

Hindsight.

Next: The Feather of Truth