Course Announcements

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Announcements allow instructors to communicate with students about course activities and post interesting course-related topics. Your announcements will publish immediately unless you change the settings to delay posting.

Watch or Listen

00:07: What are announcements? 00:09: In course navigation click the announcements link 00:13: Course announcements display on the announcements index page 00:17: To communicate with students about the logistics of a course instructors 00:21: can add an announcement. Instructors can format and add content to 00:25: announcements using the rich content editor features. 00:29: Instructors can also use announcement options to allow others to reply comment 00:33: enable podcast feeds allow liking and to specify 00:37: a time frame for the announcement. 00:40: As soon as an instructor creates an announcement canvas takes care of notifying 00:44: students according to their preferred notification settings. 00:48: There are also unread and read indicators next to the announcements. 00:53: Instructors have the option of feeding posts from a blog or other information sources 00:57: directly into their announcements page using RSS. 01:00: RSS feeds can be filtered by keyword to prevent irrelevant content from 01:04: entering the course. Students who use RSS readers can 01:08: subscribe to course announcements outside of canvas 01:13: As an instructor use announcements to Remind 01:17: your students what they need to accomplish to stay on track Point students to 01:21: internal and external resources that will help them achieve course outcomes. 01:24: Leave a message for the entire class with video or audio comments. 01:29: Celebrate Student Success and important events that may be of interest to your students. 01:34: Feed a custom RSS fee related to the topic of the course to your students 01:38: automatically share blog posts written by your students on WordPress 01:42: blogger Etc with custom RSS feeds. 01:47: As a student you may be able to view and reply to course announcements. 01:51: You may also be able to add announcements in a student group. 01:56: This guide covered announcements

Key Takeaways

  • Broadcast information: Send to all members of a course or to all members of sections within a course
  • Maintain a running record of communication: Course announcements are stored in the Announcements tab in the course navigation menu
  • Allow students to interact: Students can respond to and like Announcements
  • Delay posting: Time-sensitive Announcements can be built and sent at your discretion

Here are some more ideas for how you can use the Announcements space:

  • Enable a RSS feed to auto-post Announcements from a news source
  • Enable a podcast feed for audio Announcements

Tips

  • Immediate Publishing: Your announcements will publish immediately unless you change the settings to delay posting. It is not possible to save drafts for future use.
  • Show Recent Announcements on Home Page: You can change your course settings so that your most recent announcements show up at the top of the home page.
  • Disabling Notifications: It's important to ask students not to disable notifications, so they don't miss important announcements. 

Canvas Instructor Guides

Need more information? Check out these Canvas Guides:

 

 Try It!

Go to your Sandbox and practice using announcements by completing these two tasks:

  1. In Settings, scroll down to the end of Settings and select "more options." Then check the box for "Show recent announcements on Course home page."
  2. Go to Announcements and find the +Announcement button in the upper right corner. Post a test announcement.
  3. Go back to your Home page to see how the announcement displays at the top of the page.