Teaching online

Areas of knowledge to study to become a learning tech power user

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What are learning technology competencies? They are skills that instructors running and developing courses in learning management systems (LMS) like Canvas should know to be highly successful. Studying these learning technology competencies can help you become a Canvas power user. They are about being knowledgeable in the university’s toolset of learning technologies. Here are some example areas of knowledge:

Designing online self-paced and blended courses

Running online courses in an LMS like Canvas or Moodle

Using Zoom for presentations

Uploading and managing lecture recordings to MediaSite and editing educational videos

Using Microsoft 365 tools

Using WordPress blogs in higher education and Extension outreach

Digital accessibility for courses, multimedia, and recordings

Managing surveys and forms in software like Qualtrics or MS Forms

This list of learning technology competencies links to my own posts related to the areas of knowledge and is loosely organized by Michigan State University’s Extension competency areas (Ed Tech Core Competences).

Using Qualtrics at Ohio State

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The Qualtrics U.OSU site has Getting Started with Qualtrics information.

If you will be using Qualtrics a lot, you should send a request to your department’s Qualtrics administrator to update your account from the trial version.

Qualtrics can be used to embed welcome surveys in Canvas courses. They let instructors know when a new student has arrived in a course.

Here’s a page about prerequisite training you should complete before using Qualtrics and training about Qualtrics related to your role.

Qualtrics can be a powerful tool for creating course evaluation surveys.

Using Moodle as a teacher

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Moodle is a popular open-source learning management system (LMS) used by schools, universities, and the Extension foundation online campus.

In many Moole instances, you can use your Google or Facebook login to create a new account in the Extension foundation online campus.

Once your account is confirmed by e-mail, you can use the search box to find the course that you’re interested in.

If your course has an enrollment key, enter that in the Enrolment Key box. Enrollment keys are useful if you want to limit your audience to just people with the key.

To be granted Teacher level access to a course, you can ask a Teacher in the course that you are working with or send a request to the Moodle Admin. Once you have access, you’ll be able to ‘Turn editing on for course pages’.

Once you learn to use one learning management system (LMS), like Moodle, those skills and concepts can transfer to using other LMS, like Canvas. Moodle and Canvas are some of the most popular learning management systems.

Here are some resources about learning Moodle:

The ELT archives

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Blast from the past!

Exploring Learning Technologies was a group of instructional technologists and instructional designers at Ohio State who would meet monthly to talk about emerging technologies and popular instructional design tools. Here’s a list of archived ELT meeting information. Some include videos about the learning technologies discussed.

5/10/21: Take a Good Look Around with ELT
3/4/21: Flying High with ELT – covering working with drones
3/27/21: ELT: Power Automate
11/1/19: ELT: Getting Started with Adobe Character Animator
11/1/19: ELT: PowerPoint Unleashed
7/19/19 ELT: Getting Started with Web Annotation – covering Hypothes.is
6/21/19 ELT: Getting Started with H5P
4/17/19 ELT: Quality Assurance in Course Design
3/15/25 Podcasting Mini-Conference
2/7/19: A Closer Look at Transcription Services
1/18/19: Creating Video Discussions with Flipgrid – with Matt Yauk
9/4/18: ELT: Getting Started with the Padcaster
8/13/18: All Things Photography
6/11/18: ODEE Mixed Bag  – coving Turnitin, Proctorio, and the new Carmen Quizzing tool
5/18/18: ELT: All Things VR
3/28/18: A Closer Listen: Getting the Best Audio for your Project
3/28/18: Canvas Potpourri
3/8/17: Easier, Accessible, Better: Digital Book Publishing with Pressbooks
1/26/17: ELT: Getting to Know the Oculus Rift – at CETE at 1900 Kenny Road

General accessibility tips for Canvas course creators

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I have been using the Canvas LMS since 2016 when Ohio State switched the ‘Carmen’ learning platform from being powered by D2L to use the Instructure Canvas platform. I want to get people interested in doing accessible practices in their online Canvas courses and raise awareness of the upcoming deadline: April 24, 2026, when all materials produced by public universities should be accessible, according to the new ADA Title II regulations. I think it will take all faculty and staff at universities working together to meet that deadline. – Jon, 9/24/24

Canvas course material accessibility presentation for the Ohio Canvas User Group Conference

General accessibility tips for Canvas course creators fact sheet topics

[ General accessibility tips for Canvas fact sheet ePub coming soon ]

Here are some general web accessibility principals that Canvas course creators can keep in mind to make their course pages more accessible. These principles also apply to working with webpages in general, since course pages are in HTML format. Learning management systems and content management systems use similar WYSIWYG editors for updating the HTML content of a webpage.

TOC

Accessibility testing:

Check your course page with the built-in accessibility checker in the RCE (rich text editor):

Some learning management platforms, like Canvas, have built-in accessibility checkers. The one in Canvas can be found in the options of the course page rich text editor (RCE). To use it, edit a course page and click the accessibility checkers icon. An issues panel appears on the right side of your screen and will walk you through each issue and give you the opportunity to fix them. If an image is missing alt text, the checker will let you enter an alt description.
See this how to use the Accessibility Checker in the RCE article for more information. Below is a screen of the accessibility checker finding missing alt text.
Sscreenshot the accessibility checker in the RCE finding missing alt text.

Check your course page with the WAVE accessibility checker:

The WAVE tool is available as a browser extension for Chrome, Edge, and Firefox and will allow you to check your webpage for accessibility issues in one-click. The checker will show you exactly where the issues are in the code and provide advice on how to correct them.

Images

Add alternative text descriptions to your images:

Alternative text will describe the image to screen reader users and be seen by sighted users if the image can’t load. Focus on the meaning or purpose of the image rather than trying to describe every detail. In the Canvas LMS while editing a course page we can click on an image, click on the ‘Image Options’ button that pops up, and enter alt text in the Image Options pane that appears on the right-side of our screen.
Screenshot showing adding alt text in the Canvas RCE.
See this article about alt text and display options for images added with the RCE for more information.

Headings

Use headings properly:

Be sure to separate your content into sections, especially in longer articles, and use headings correctly. In the editor, it may appear that headings are like font sizes, but they are more for structural usage. You shouldn’t pick a lower heading size because you like the font size of it. Headings need to be properly nested in a heading structure where you shouldn’t skip heading levels. For example, you shouldn’t go from an H1 to an H3. That H3 should be an H2 to be properly nested in the heading structure. While editing a course page, you can change highlighted text to a heading by clicking on the ‘Paragraph’ menu in the rich text editor. Under that menu you’ll find several heading level options.
Screenshot showing that there are several heading level options under the Paragraph menu in the RCE in Canvas.

Here are some articles about using headings in the RCE:

Use of color

Make sure all text has sufficient color contrast:

Small or regular-sized text should have a contrast ratio of 4.5:1 and large text (bold and 18px or higher or normal and 24px or higher) should have a contrast ratio of a least 3:1. You can use the WebAIM Contrast Checker tool or the Colour Contrast Analyzer tool to find the color contrast ratio. Also, make sure no content or visuals rely on color alone to communicate meaning. Use other ways to differentiate visuals to aid color-blind users.
You can find out more about adjusting color contrast in this Color Contrast in Canvas article. This Adjusting color contrast with the accessibility checker article is another good resource.

Make sure your hyperlinks are descriptive and not just ‘click here’ links

Making link text more descriptive helps give context about where the link goes to. You could instead say, click here to learn more about (the subject…). Links should make sense out of context so if screen reader users land on them they will know where they go. Short phrases such as “click here,” “more,” “click for details,” are ambiguous when read out of context. Screen readers have key shortcuts that can jump between links in a page and using the tab key jumps between focusable objects like links & buttons. So, a screen reader user may not have read nearby text that would give a short ‘click here’ more context. You should include the context withing the link text itself.
See the Introduction to Links and Hypertext guidance from WebAIM for more information about writing descriptive hyperlinks.

Tables

Make sure you only use tables for tabular data:

Tables should only be used to show numerical data. They shouldn’t be used for layout like organizing out parts of the page into columns. In the late 1990s some designers used table-based layout which wasn’t an accessible practice and not responsive to smaller screens.
See this inserting tables using the Rich Content Editor article to learn more about working with data tables in Canvas.

Make sure your data tables have a header row specified:

Each label on a column should be a true header cell TH instead of a regular cell TD. In Canvas you can tell that something is a header cell by clicking in the cell while editing the post. Below the table if it says ‘TH’ in the tag tree it’s a header cell. For example, the tag tree at the bottom of the editor might say: ‘TABLE > THEAD > TR > TH’. This is in the lower left side of the editing window. If you know HTML you could also switch to the code view and check the first row’s cell tags. They should be TH tags rather than TD.

Below is an example of a table created in the Canvas RCE where a header row has been specified. Notice the different styling of the first row. Screenshot of a table in Canvas that has had a header row specified.
The RCE table editor doesn’t allow you to specify header cells. You have to use the accessibility checker in the RCE to do that. It will analyze the table you created and give you an opportunity to specify a header row. Here is a screen of specifying a header row with the accessibility checker.
Screenshot of specifying a header row for a table in Canvas.

The accessibility checker will ask you to add a caption to your table. If you already have a descriptive heading immediately above the table, an additional caption isn’t required.

Avoid using complex tables:

You should avoid using complex tables because they can be challenging to make accessible and confusing to navigate for screen reader users. It may be better to convert a large complex table into two or more simple tables.
See WebAIM’s article about Creating Accessible Tables for more information.

 

Additional resources about online course accessibility:

Beginner’s Accessibility with the Rich Content Editor
How to use the Accessibility Checker in the RCE
Color Contrast in Canvas – an article about adjusting color contrast in the RCE.
Adjusting color contrast with the accessibility checker  – a good resource on fixing color contrast issues in Canvas course pages.
Inserting tables using the Rich Content Editor  – an article about working with data tables in Canvas.

How to upload and link to a PDF into your Canvas course

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TOC:

How to upload and link to a PDF into your Canvas course

You might wonder How can instructors link to PDFs in their Canvas courses? To link a PDF file in a Canvas course, you can use the Files area feature. As an instructor, you can upload one or multiple files, view all details about your files, preview files, publish and unpublish files, set usage rights, and restrict access to files. Here are the steps to link a PDF file in your Canvas course:

  1. Go to the course where you want to link the PDF file.
  2. Click on the Files tab in the course navigation bar.
  3. Click on the Upload button to upload the PDF file.
  4. Once the file is uploaded, click on the file name to open the file details page.
  5. Copy the URL of the file from the address bar of your browser.
  6. Go to the page where you want to link the PDF file.
  7. Click on the Edit button to edit the page.
  8. Highlight the text that you want to use as the link text.
  9. Click on the Link to URL button in the Rich Content Editor (RCE).
  10. Paste the URL of the PDF file in the URL field.
  11. Click on the Insert Link button to insert the link.

Congratulations! You have successfully linked a PDF file in your Canvas course.

How to check and fix the accessibility of a PDF before uploading to your course

You can use the accessibility checker feature in Adobe Acrobat to review the accessibility of your PDF and fix issues. To check and fix the accessibility of a PDF take these steps in Adobe Acrobat Pro:

  1. Open the PDF in Adobe Acrobat Pro.
  2. Run an accessibility check by selecting Accessibility, Accessibility Check, Start Checking or Tools > Accessibility > Full Check.
  3. Read the report and follow the prompts.
  4. Fix the issues identified in the report.
  5. Save the PDF.

Alternatively, you can use the ‘Make Accessible’ tool in Acrobat to automatically fix some issues.
If you need more detailed instructions, you can watch this video that shows how to use the accessibility checker in Adobe Acrobat Pro to identify and fix some common accessibility issues in a PDF document. The video covers how to:

  • Run the accessibility checker and review the results.
  • Fix the logical reading order, bookmarks, tagged annotations, and figures with alternate text.
  • Modify the tags panel to correct the nesting and tag types of headings, links, and lists.

Please note that the accessibility checker may not detect all accessibility issues, so it’s important to manually review the document as well.

Additional resources

Here are some additional resources about linking to files in Canvas course:

Articles about linking to files in Canvas courses:

Videos about linking in Canvas course pages:

What are Groups in Canvas? 

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Groups in Canvas are used as a collaborative tool where students can work together on group projects and assignments. So if an instructor anticipates having group assignments they can setup groups in a course. Learn more about Groups in the Canvas Instructor’s guide. Groups might be useful in the type of online course where a cohort of students follows a fixed schedule and learns together. Groups might be less useful for self-paced asynchronous courses where students start at any time and don’t interact very much with other students.

What is H5P?

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H5P is a web-based service that allows instructional designers to create interactive learning activities to reinforce course content and make learning more engaging. H5P learning objects can be embed in Canvas, WordPress, Drupal, or .html files. At Ohio State H5P learning objects are often embedded in Canvas course pages. You can view some examples of types of learning objects on H5P.org.

Digital accessibility videos for FCS educators and Extension staff:

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Use your OSU login to sign in and watch the videos.

Other resources:

Also see the Digital Accessibility Essentials Training from LOD group to learn more about these accessibility topics.

What is Carmen Canvas?

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Carmen Canvas is the name for the Canvas LMS (learning management system) instance used for academic courses at The Ohio State University. They generically call the learning management platform ‘Carmen’ for conistency accross the years. So that one LMS can be swapped out with another and still retain the name ‘Carmen’.

Camen first started in 2005 when the university switched from using the WebCT learning management system to using the Desire to Learn platform. Later, in 2016, the LMS was swapped out with the Canvas learning platform but the ‘Carmen’ brand was retained. Carmen Canvas is the regular version of the Canvas LMS, while Scarlet Canvas is the Canvas Catalog product version used for public-facing enrichment courses.