You can create an announcement to share important information with all users within your course and with users in sections of a course. In your notification preferences, you can choose to receive notifications for announcements created by you as well as replies to announcements you’ve created.
Important
- Your course must be published for students to receive announcement notifications. If you import an announcement from another course, new announcement notifications will not send to course users.
- If an announcement is created before the course start date and the students can only participate in the course between these dates setting is enabled, students will not receive announcement notifications before the start date.
- Notifications from Canvas come from [email protected], and they often show up in the “other” or “updates” area of your inbox.
How does Canvas differ from Blackboard?
- Users can receive notifications via email and mobile push notification (if enabled)
- Canvas allows students to comment on an announcement if instructor and division allows.
- Announcements appear on the User Dashboard.
- Canvas has the ability to add RSS feeds.
How to use – Canvas instructions
Guides
Canvas offers a series of in-depth guides on Announcements, including creating, editing, and scheduling announcements for your class.
Video
Watch a quick video (2m 23s) on the announcements tool in Canvas.
Announcements Overview on Canvas from Instructure Canvas Community Video Guides
Best Practices
- Many instructors choose to send a weekly announcement recapping what has occurred in the past week and looking forward to the upcoming one. This framing can help students feel connected to the course and on task.
- These weekly announcements are a place to highlight good conversations being had in the classroom or discussion board, important due dates, and news topics that connect with the course.
Accessibility
- Do not use colors to denote meaning in the text.
- Consider contrast when formatting text. It is best to keep text formatting simple (black text, white background).
- Avoid blinking or moving text or gifs.
- Be sure to provide alt text for images and include captions and sources for images.