There are no Blogs, Wikis, or Journals but there are some alternatives. Discussions allow for interactive communication between two or more people; users can participate in a conversation with an entire class or group. Discussions can be created as an assignment for grading purposes (and seamlessly integrated with the Canvas Gradebook), or simply serve as a forum for topical and current events. Discussions can also be created within student groups.
Important
- There are no Wikis, Blogs, or Journals in Canvas.
- Discussions can be graded or ungraded.
- If a student attaches a file to an ungraded discussion, the file size counts toward the student’s storage quotas. However, attachments added to graded discussions do not count toward the student’s storage quotas.
- If you want to create a graded discussion and you have added sections in the Post To field, the Graded option will be unavailable. You must remove the sections from the Post To field before selecting this option. You will be able to add sections as part of the graded discussion options.
How does Canvas differ from Blackboard?
- There are no more Wikis, Blogs, or Journals. Discussions are a great alternative to Blogs. Check out pages for an alternative to wikis and consider Collaborations if you have an academic course.
- Instructors can grade, pin (locking discussion to the top of the page), and close threads. Canvas posts replies to notification emails back to subscribed threads.
How to use – Canvas instructions
Guide
- Canvas offers an in-depth guide on Discussions.
- Learn about how to reorder or move discussions.
- Instructor Discussions Overview video.
Discussions Overview on Canvas
Best Practices and Accessibility
- Wherever drag and drop is used to reorder components, the Move-to option is also available and allows both screen readers and keyboard users to move Canvas content. The Move-to option is available in Discussions.
- The Rich Content Editor supports multiple accessibility features for easy creation of accessible content.