Canvas Corner Volume 5: Customizing Your Dashboard
The Canvas dashboard is highly customizable. Students and Instructors have the ability to select their courses display type, which courses appear on the dashboard, the color overlay of the course thumbnails, and even the course names themselves! Because the dashboard is personalized for each user, any adjustments made only impact the user who made those adjustments. So, a student could change a course’s name to “The One Taught By the Tall Person” and that student would be the only person who would see that interesting title. The same goes for color overlays, the order courses appear on a dashboard, and more! Here’s the full list of what can be customized on the Canvas dashboard:
- What Courses Appear: Users are encouraged to go to their “Courses” page in Canvas, where they can check/uncheck the star that appears before each course. When a course is “starred” it appears on the dashboard. It is important to manage this process each time new courses are added to Canvas.
- Course Nickname: Each user has the ability to provide a course with a nickname that is visible only to them. Have fun!
- Color Overlay: User can also select what color they want to represent their courses’ dashboard thumbnail. “No color” is also an option.
- Dashboard View: Users can select if they want their courses to appear on the dashboard (card view), their calendar events to appear (list view), or their recent activities to appear (activity view).
Having the power to manage your dashboard view is a great thing, but remember that you do have to MANAGE it. Courses will not “magically” appear on your dashboard when a new semester begins or disappear when it concludes like in Moodle. It’s also important to note that Instructors will have access to their Canvas courses for 5 years (almost 4 years more than they currently have access in Moodle), which is great, but it also means having 4 times as many classes to manage and organize. That is where understanding how to customize your dashboard becomes so important a skill to master. Thankfully, it’s very easy! Watch the video to learn more…
RELEVANT LINKS FOR TODAY'S CANVAS CORNER:
Training Portal Links:
- Training Portal Home Page (First time? Click “Authorize” to enter)
- Opening Canvas Training (45 minutes – to enter, you must first authorize your Training Services account)
Relevant Knowledgebase Articles:
NMC Canvas Resources:
- Canvas Corner Playlist
- Moodle Minute Playlist
- Ed Tech Knowledgebase
- Growing with Canvas at Northwestern Michigan College (Instructor Training)
- Passport to Canvas (Student Training)