Creating a Canvas template without code. (#lscanvas)

There are many ways to organize your course homepage. Some use a clickable calendar and others list the modules. Did you know you can also create a homepage that is graphically clickable?

Getting Started

• Find one image for each unit/module.
• Create a header image.
• The homepage needs some text.

Images
You can use the image search within Canvas or an outside site. We are using the Noun Project for this blog post.


Header
There are plenty of sites you can use to create a header image, for this post we used Canva.

Start by searching for Facebook cover and clicking enter.

Select any cover that has the word free in the lower right corner.

If you want to keep the stock image, skip this step.

1. Click Uploads on the far left side.

2. Click Upload an image.

3. Click the image you want as your cover image. 

Delete the background image.

Double click to add new image.

Adjust to fit.

Adjust the text.

When ready, click to download.

Assembling the Homepage

Open the page within the course you are going to edit.

Upload the new banner image you created in Canva.

Here is our newly created image on the homepage in Canvas.

We recommend adding a table below your image to keep everything properly aligned. We have seven units but we are adding nine spots. One of the spots we are going to link to outside homework help.

1. Click the Table tool.

2. Highlight the number of cells you want to add. Click to add.

Click the button to add an image.

1. Click Canvas.

2. Click Course Files.

3. Click Upload File.

4. Click the file you want to upload.

Make sure you adjust the dimensions of the file.

We recommend 150 or smaller.

Click Update.

Once you have all your images uploaded, highlight them all.

Click the icon to center all the images.

1. Click the table. Click the leftmost icon.

2. Click the Advanced tab. Add #ffffff as the border color. This will make the table outline white making it invisible. 

3. Click Ok.

1. Click and hit enter to place the cursor below your image.

2. Click Modules and then click the module you want to add as a link.

3. Click Save.

Finished!