These Quick and Easy Canvas Settings Will Save Your A**… and Your Grade!
When it comes to Canvas, the Learning Management System (LMS) that many colleges and universities employ, many students have a hard time navigating the app’s features. Whether it be the app’s design or overall functionality, many students feel as if the app falls short of what they would expect from something that is supposed to keep them on track with school. In the more extreme cases, some students who use Canvas feel that the app is more annoying or confusing than it is helpful. Such concerns with the app are not entirely baseless, however some of them can be easily resolved right from your smartphone or tablet!
Many students have expressed concern over the app’s notifications, stating that they seem to either get so many that they get overwhelmed or not get any at all. This can be particularly concerning when it comes to assignments, because nobody wants to miss out on an assignment simply because they missed a Canvas notification. For this reason, it’s important that you customize your Canvas notifications to your liking, and that you take advantage of the in-app calendar feature to stay atop your assignments. Here’s how you can do that from your smartphone or tablet.
Step 1: Use Canvas’ Calendar to Keep Track of Deadlines
If you’re just interested in seeing a calendar spread of your assignments, you can open up your Canvas app and click on the “Calendar” option at the bottom of the screen. This will bring up the app’s calendar feature, which will organize all of your assignments by due date. In this feature, wherever there is a small blue dot there is a deadline and where there isn’t, well, there isn’t. This is a neat feature if you just want quick access to all your due dates, however it doesn’t allow for much customization as far as which classes to include.
Step 2: Find Your App Settings
With the Canvas app open, go onto your dashboard (which should be your “home” page) and click on the three lines at the top left corner of the screen so that the menu will appear. From the menu, click on the small settings icon on the top right and then click on “Notification Preferences”. Lastly, click on the “For All Devices” option. This will bring up your notification settings for all of your devices at once (smartphone, tablet).
Step 3: Optimize Your Notification Settings
Once in the notification settings, you will be able to turn all sorts of notifications on and off to your liking. However, if you wish to make the Canvas app more useful to you as far as assignment deadlines go, I recommend you only turn on “Due Date” notifications. This will ensure that you receive all assignment deadline notifications, and will keep less important notifications from clogging your notification panel.
These quick, easy steps have helped improve my experience with Canvas, and have certainly saved me from missing assignments a handful of times. If you have a minute, I definitely recommend you go through your notification settings!
