Getting Started with Canvas for Extension

canvas-logoObtaining a Canvas Site Through PACE

This information is intended for Extension faculty who are using PACE’s Extension Enrollment system. Going through PACE provides you with access to the IdealLogic registration system. This is the portal through which your clients (non-ONID users) will get full access to OSU Canvas.

If you haven’t already done so, submit a request to PACE to begin the registration setup for your program or course. Here’s how to do it:

  1. Fill out the PACE Extension Enrollment Form located at https://pace.oregonstate.edu/extension-enrollment-form  (This is the same form you might have used to work with PACE on registration for other types of Extension classes and workshops.) 
  2. PACE will review your information, and reply to you with any questions they have about your registration set-up. PACE will also create a Canvas shell for you, and email you a confirmation containing the Canvas course number and title. This can take one or two days, but they try to get your Canvas shell set up within 48 hours. You will see your new Canvas course when you log into your Canvas account. The site will be a “course shell,” essentially a blank slate in which to build your course.
  3. Once the registration form is set up in Ideal-Logic and you put your content into Canvas, the course can be launched. PACE will send you a URL to the Ideal-Logic registration form that students will use to set up a student account and register for your course.  Students will then access Canvas through their Ideal-Logic student account. You can contact PACE with any questions, at pace@oregonstate.edu or 541-737-4197.

Setting Up Your Course

Setting up a course in Canvas the first time may seem daunting. To help Extension faculty hit the ground running, we are providing an OSU Extension Course Template. The template models a way to structure your course and offers guidance to add and organize your course content. The template does not prescribe course content; you can easily modify it to suit your needs.

Once you’ve viewed the Extension Course Template, you may choose to quickly import the template into your course by following these steps:

(Here also is a brief video showing the steps in this process.)

  1. Go to your OSU Canvas dashboard. You can reach it by logging in with your ONID password here.
  2. Click on the “Commons” button at the left side of your dashboard.
  3. Now you’re in Canvas Commons. Type “Extension Course Template” in the search box.
  4. Click the title “Extension Course Template” in the search results to select that template.
  5. On the right side menu, select your course that you want to import the template to.
  6. Click the green “Import into Course” button. (It may take a little while if your course is or large.)
  7. View your course to confirm that the template was imported properly, and make any necessary adjustments.

Using the Extension Canvas Template

Use the green highlighted text in the template to guide you as you build your course. Remember to remove all of the guide text before you publish your course. You can publish by clicking the “Publish” button at the upper right of the course homepage.

Need More Help?

Click on “Help” at the lower left of any Canvas page to search the Canvas Guides, to chat live 24/7 with Canvas support or to reach the Canvas phone support hotline.

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Hybrid Course Development On a Fast-Track

Here’s a very brief  DIY guide to building a hybrid course. It’s intended to give you access to some of the materials we’ve developed for the Extension Hybrid Initiative, and a few descriptions of tools and techniques. It’s enough to get you going without hopefully getting you in trouble!

Background Reading:

Do It Yourself Blended Course Design

Ten Questions to consider when redesigning a course for hybrid teaching and learning

Building Your Course – Course Design

Visit: https://blended.online.ucf.edu/process/building-your-course/

  1. Map out your course goals, objectives and outcomes. Strive to make the objectives criterion-referenced, that is, measurable.
  2. How do you start constructing a hybrid course? By working backwards from your course learning outcomes.   Please view Learning Outcomes, a 6-minute tutorial from Ecampus.
  3. Learning outcomes are particularly important for students to understand the significance of online components of a hybrid course. See Objectives Builder page of the Ecampus website.
  4. Align learning resources, content, activities and assessments with your course learning outcomes. An effective way to work on alignment of your course elements is to fill out a Hybrid Course Planning Chart.
  5. Develop module-level learning objectives (for example, by the unit, the week, or the concept) to ensure that your content within each module is well aligned, and that your learners know what they are expected to learn within that module.
  6. What learning will occur on-line? How much time? What learning will occur on-site? How much time? Developing a Mix Map will help identify theses elements.
    1. Mix Map template and instructions [Word doc; size=45kb]
    2. Mix Map completed sample [pdf file; size=24kb]
    3. Video: Oregon State University Burnett shares her Mix Map[8 min. streaming video]

Content Development

Using existing resources –

  • Conduct Google Searches for relevant content for use online, including videos, podcasts, PDFs, animation, PowerPoint, etc.
  • Investigate Open Educational Resources (OER) options (i.e.,org)

Creating your own learning objects

Tools:

  • Screencasts (narrated or not) [i.e., Camtasia]
  • Video
  • Readings (PDF)
  • Other websites
  • Apps

BEST PRACTICE: Packaging “lectures” in 5-to-15-minute chunks–with a tightly defined focus–is a successful approach in many blended courses.

 

Creating your own learning modules

What is a Hybrid Learning Module?

1 – One or more measurable learning outcomes

2 – Content (subject matter/information)

3 – One or more online learning activities

4 – One or more face-to-face learning activities     

5 – Clear pathways for interaction of 3 types:

  • Learner with content
  • Learner-to-learner
  • Learner-to-facilitator

6 – One or more assessments to gauge achievement of learning outcomes

7 – A set of directions that the facilitator and/or the learner will use as a guide to use of the hybrid learning module

  • – Overall: Strong integration of face-to-face and online learning activities

See:  Frequently Asked Questions – Blended Learning

Preparing Your students for Hybrid Learning

Please take a look at

While these resources are targeted toward college students, many of the pointers given here have applicability to other groups of learners of all ages.

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Hybrid Teaching in Extension- OSU Faculty Share Their Ideas

In this video, OSU faculty share their plans to initiate hybrid approaches to their Extension programming. Hybrid offers a new normal for lifelong learning, with the potential to reach new and wider audiences. It also offers efficiency, the capacity for easy sharing of resources, and reduces travel costs associated with full on-site programming.

https://youtu.be/kuAfUvZ9Ggo?list=PLeSwbhcssHKRG949fquCGhd0KFyif95mR

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Online tool reviews – Voki

Voki allows you to create speaking avatars that can be included in websites, blogs, etc. It is meant to be used as an educational tool and is geared more for educating children. The characters types are endless, ranging from animals to fantasy figures, that can be created and used to narrate a script. There is also the option to record your own voice, upload your own audio, character, and/or background images. The script can be read in many different languages in with with different voice types. The basic character creation can be done for free. Other features are available based on different subscription packages. Other features include lesson plan sharing among educators, and material management for student access.

It does not take long to figure out how to create your own avatar. It’s a little more difficult to determine how much can be done with them, and the applicability of the extra bundles and features is not immediately apparent. Based on my experience I would say it could serve as a “neat” addition to a lesson plan, but I can’t see heavy reliance on these tools for extensive use. I created a sample avatar and it can be viewed here. An embeddable code is provided, but it requires flash player.

Review by Gilbert Uribe

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Food As Medicine intro to Applied Nutrition

What’s Killing Americans is the first of 5 short presentations in the introduction to Applied Nutrition entitled Food as Medicine.

This was my second attempt at screencast 0 matic. I resolved the issues with my microphone and practiced using the tool and it got much easier. I narrated 5 powerpoints.

The problem was with editing. With the free version, if you make a mistake, you start over. If you purchase the program, apparently you can go back and edit one word or so.  Considering it took me a good 15 tries to get this first one done, I think it would e well worth the $15 for the pay version.

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Animoto: Prezi-like Slide Shows

Animoto helps create visually interesting slide shows using pictures, video and text. You simply choose a template, insert your material into a storybook sequence and then publish. It reminds me of Prezi made into a video with music–items fly around and there is lots of visual stimulation. The trial version is pretty limited and has the Animoto watermark on it. Once completed you can share your presentation in a variety of ways (Facebook, Youtube, etc). Music is included with the presentation–I found it rolled over the audio in my video and volume couldn’t be adjusted. Video clips downloaded to the presentation were limited to 10 seconds at a time but you can add a longer video and cut it into pieces right in the storyboard. I didn’t see a way to adjust the amount of time on each slide which I found myself wanting to do to emphasize a certain slide.

Overall I think this would be a fun piece to add to a learning module to summarize the content or tell a story of impact or to market a certain aspect. It wouldn’t be useful for teaching detailed content. Like most learning objects, you would have to have content to download ie. videos or pictures. Students could use this for simple presentations but again, it would be hard to add a lot of content. Think mostly–FUN.

Cost is $9.99, $19.99, or $29.99 per month. Here’s my presentation using the school template in Animoto:

Review by Patty Case

https://animoto.com/play/sZLoGZiYx1skLjb2mP1sdA

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Reversing Arterial Disease

I reviewed the tool screencast-o-matic for use with my attempt at animation of a how a healthy artery gets diseased by poor food choices.  Then I created a second animation for reversing this damage with healthy foods.

The screencast o matic allowed me to add voice to a Publisher diagram of an artery with clipart. I spoke as I moved clipart around. It was simple once I understood that I needed to create the Publisher document first then open the tool and click and drag the tool box around the document. Then I hit record and save. That’s it.

The hard part was number one, the volume. It sounds like I’m talking in a big bowl. And when I listened without the headphones, even with the volume all the way up, it was difficult to hear. Number two, if you hover over a piece of clipart, it shows the outline of the item. But I suppose I could live with that.

Thirdly, with the free version of screencast o matic, the program will only save your last recording. So when you do a second recording, the first one is lost. In order to save more than one recording, you need to save it to your desktop. To save them in screencast o matic, you must purchase the PRO version.

Lastly, I’m not sure if it’s a detriment or a bonus, but the free version only records up to 15 minutes. That’s great if you want to keep it short and fun and engage audiences. But it’s really hard when you are trying to tell a complicated story like reversing arterial disease. It would take some strategic editing.

I didn’t use a script (OBVIOUSLY) and I would recommend that. But try using a script when you’re also trying to drag clipart around the screen and avoid distractions!! It’s a juggling act which apparently takes plenty of practice to look professional.

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Tool Review: LiveBinders

This tool review was written by Tiffany Fegel

Overall I give LiveBinders three stars: ♦♦♦

I choose to review this tool because there is a very strong attachment to the ‘old’ way of the MWM program where each participant was handed a thick binder of the entire courses information. So I thought, well a virtual version of that could be cool! However, this program seems slightly outdated. And although the idea is an awesome one they miss the bar on a few things. It’s neat in that you can add pretty much any media type that you’d like, including (which I was surprised to find) an embedded survey monkey quiz. I think the program has a lot to offer and with more time spent developing each ‘tab’ could be really awesome! The learning curve for me was minimal as the program is similar to Droople. I think the learning curve for the student would be equally small, it’s pretty self-explanatory.

The cost is free. Another cool feature is they have android and apple Apps.

Sample: http://www.livebinders.com/play/play?id=1687305&present=true

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Slideshare: Visual Learning Tool

Slideshare is a platform that allows you share presentations, infographics, and even videos. You can also create presentations on Slideshare using Haiku (which is much more visually appealing than your traditional PPT).

The website is easy to sign into, and easy to upload content to. It also has a cool feature where you can search for presentations on topics of interest.

Most academics utilize this to upload PPT presentations from conferences. The problem with this is that they created a PPT that was supposed to go with a speaker, so uploading them to Slideshare without tweaking makes them uninspiring and noneducational. There is a transcript space, but you have to keep scrolling up and down to read the corresponding statement for each slide.

Slideshare made this great blog post on how to transform a presentation into a more visually appealing and informational format, I highly recommend reading this should you want to use this tool:

https://blog.slideshare.net/2015/03/30/slide-makeovers-transforming-powerpoint-bullets-into-visual-learning/

It is pretty inspiring to see professionally made presentations!

Ultimately though, I think most of us would prefer to use a tool that allows us to record audio to the presentation, making it accessible to both verbal and auditory learners.

 

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Review of Mindmeister: silly name, useful tool.

I reviewed Mindmeister-an online mind mapping tool.  Overall, this tool was useful and creating an example did indeed help to clarify my thoughts. (See below for an example using my Master Gardener hybrid class.) MindMeister offers a free account with three mind maps and basic functionality with fee-based upgrades.  The map is fully exportable in many different formats.  The map can also be shared with colleagues so that can collaborative work can be done.   I don’t know if I would have my Master Gardener participants use this as a requirement because it does take someone tech-savvy to not get frustrated.  (The website has many options so there is a bit of a learning curve.)  A minor annoyance was that the map had a tendency to reset or snap to a grid where the bubbles were placed with defined spacing.  I spent probably too much time fussing over the bubbles than the content of the bubbles.  Overall, I found this tool handy and will likely use it again. 4 stars!

Screen Shot 2015-03-30 at 2.01.33 PM
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