New Student Dashboard in Canvas

Canvas recently released a new dashboard view for students that quickly shows students upcoming agenda items from their courses.  Announcements, assignments, quizzes, discussion posts and even pages within Canvas that have been assigned to students will appear on the new dashboard.

To try the new dashboard, click on the More Options menu in the top-right corner of the dashboard page in Canvas.  (Small bit of trivia: some people call those three vertical dots a “kabob menu”.) Most people have the “Card View” as their default.  Select “List View”. 

From left-to-right, Canvas will display the course name, a check box, the name of the task, the points possible and due date.  Each item includes a link to easily access the content within the course.  If a student checks a non-graded item as complete, the page will be updated when the page refreshes.  If a task is missing or late, a red alert will be included. 

 

To Do, My Grades, and Alerts

On the upper-right side of the List dashboard, students will find a series of icons to help manage their due-dates and grades.  The plus sign allows students to create their own “To Do” item.  To Do items are general by default but can be associated with a course.  General items created by students will be displayed after course items in the To Do list.

Next to the To Do menu is “My Grades” which will show the student their current calculated grade in the class. The final icon is a bell, or the “Alerts Menu”, with a number to indicate how many late or missing items the student might have.  Students may dismiss an item from the Alerts menu, but it will not have an effect on the item within the context of the course.    

Time to Relax

Anyone who’s lucky enough to check everything off their list or doesn’t have anything scheduled will find a calming image to help celebrate their completed To Do list.