This is a Guest Post and forms part of our My Canvas Tips series.

Snapshot

Your name, title, etc.:  Dr. Moira Di Mauro-Jackson, Senior Lecturer of French and Section Coordinator of Italian

The school/department you teach for: World Languages and Literatures Department

Discipline:  Foreign Language, Literatures and Culture Instruction

Class size: 28-32 students x class

Tip #1: Aim to WOW

Description: Students can always pick up a dictionary or download a language learning App like Duolingo on their own. What they cannot do, unless they go to live in France or Italy, is understand who the French and Italian people are, why these people are how they are, and how they truly think since speaking and truly immersing ourselves in a foreign language, is another way of thinking or another way of interpreting the world around us.

Canvas helps us with immersion through the visuals that it allows; a picture does paint a thousand words. It allows me, as the instructor, to go beyond the language, the written word, and make my courses look like a trip to Italy or France (the subjects I teach), with the visual beauty of the landscape and the people and their art and culture and food, of course!

Tip #2: Have fun exploring Canvas

Description: We all teach different subjects and desire different outcomes for our courses and students. Relax, enjoy learning all about how you can design your own perfect adventure online. Talk to your colleagues. Check the ODEL and Faculty Development websites for both formal and informal learning opportunities.

Tip #3: Make the most of Canvas

Description: Canvas works like more than an LMS, it is a fully integrated, live and active, online course that feels and looks like a virtual reality, that in turn helps the instructor to annotate and grade written assignments without leaving Canvas and allows students to easily navigate the course, move forward and backward using the navigation links or next and previous buttons, along with the control left-side course navigation menu, and content links to documents, discussions, assignments and even quizzes.