Category: Featured

Online Education Workshop Archives

Flex Credit is available for viewing MiraCosta online workshop archives. Contact the Professional Development Program / Flex for more information.

If you require improved captions for any of the video recordings below, please contact Jim Julius.

Spring 2026

Spring 26: DesignPLUS Train and Play Series

Fall 2025

Spring 2025

Fall 2024

Spring 2024

Fall 2023

Spring 2023

Fall 2022

Spring 2022

Fall 2021

Spring 2021

Equity Online: Celebrating Our Collaborative Work In Progress

Flex Week

Fall 2020

Summer 2020

Canvas Basics

Additional recorded zoom sessions and online teaching guides from Summer 2020 can be viewed within the PROJECT Online Teaching Foundations Canvas course.

Spring 2020

Fall 2019

Spring 2019

Fall 2018

Spring 2018

Fall 2017

Spring 2017

Fall 2016

DesignPLUS for Canvas

DesignPlus Flex Workshop Recordings

DesignPLUS is a user-friendly Canvas plug-in that helps you build polished, engaging, and accessible courses efficiently. DesignPLUS is licensed for all faculty at MiraCosta College using Canvas.

DesignPLUS includes four primary tools:

  • Sidebar – a suite of rich content editor tools that help you create organized, accessible, engaging, and visually polished content in Canvas with ease.
  • QuickStart Wizard – design tools available when you are editing new content in Canvas (a new page, assignment, discussion, etc) to quickly add visual design elements or adopt existing templates.
  • Cidi Labs Multi-Tool – a time-saving tool that lets you quickly set up an engaging home page and create accessible templates for reuse across Canvas. It also can help you quickly build repeatable, consistent module structures. You can also adjust due dates and delay announcements using this tool.
  • Upload/Embed Image Tool – a tool that enables you to discover, add, edit, and place course images in Canvas

DesignPLUS Sidebar

When you are editing Canvas content, select the sidebar icon at top right to launch the Sidebar tool, which will then appear on the right. The Sidebar tool includes many enhancements to the Rich Content Editor in Canvas, enabling you to easily add a variety of attractive and engaging content elements.

Getting Started with the Sidebar

Learn more about the DesignPLUS Sidebar (Tap to open a list of resources).

Sidebar Basics

Sidebar Resources and Guide

Sidebar Training Videos

How do I build a basic page?

How do I build a home page?

DesignPlus Accessibility Tools

DesignPlus Accessibility and Usability Tools Overview

DesignPlus User Guide Canvas Course

DesignPLUS QuickStart Wizard

The QuickStart Wizard button appears when you open a new page, assignment, or syllabus for editing. Activating the Wizard gives you access to templates for the entire page, or pre-defined content blocks of different types to help you customize the page.

Getting Started with the QuickStart Wizard

Cidi Labs Multi-Tool

The Cidi Labs Multi-Tool shows up in the left course navigation menu of your Canvas course. You will be asked to authorize Cidi Labs to access your Canvas account. Once the Multi-Tool is set up, you can select from a variety of tools to help rapidly develop and update your courses. Watch the Multi-Tool orientation video to learn more about what it can do for you.

Getting Started with the Multi-tool

To learn more, see Multi-Tool FAQs.

DesignPLUS Upload/Embed Image Tool

This tool enables you to manage course images directly in Canvas. Upload, crop, resize, and embed images anywhere in your course, or quickly add free, high-quality images from Pexels and Unsplash. To access the Upload/Embed Image (U/EI) tool, go to apps through the Rich Content Editor (RCE). The first time you access the tool, you will be asked to authorize Cidilabs to access Canvas so this tool is available for you. Watch the Upload/Embed Image orientation video to learn how this tool works.

Getting Started with the Upload/Embed Image Tool

To learn more, see Benefits of using the Upload/Embed Tool or Adding the Upload/Embed (U/EI) Tool to the Rich Content Editor (RCE)

Additional DesignPLUS Support

DesignPLUS Customer Support: support@cidilabs.com

DesignPLUS Knowledge Base and FAQs

DesignPLUS User Guide

DesignPLUS Library of Designs and Templates

For support or training, contact instructional designer, Nadia Khan: nkhan@miracosta.edu

Stay Up To Date with Changes Happening within Canvas

Visit the Canvas Release Notes/Upcoming Changes page within the Canvas Community. This page is updated by Instructure and is the central location for communicating all Canvas’s significant upcoming changes. Check the Canvas System Status Updates for real time updates about existing features within Canvas.

Canvas Release Notes / Upcoming Changes
Canvas System Status Updates
MiraCosta Canvas Server Uptime Report

Spring 2026 Online Education @ MiraCosta

Dear colleagues, happy 2026! Please see below for reminders of resources to help you and your students to succeed in online environments this spring. If you didn’t see my email last week with updates about new and useful tools for getting your Canvas courses ready for the semester, I’d invite you to first check that out. And definitely look for the online ed Flex workshops coming this week.

Support for You

  • Our Canvas start-of-term checklist can help you prepare your classes. New to Canvas? We have lots of resources to help you get started.
  • The TIC website is a great starting point for all kinds of information and support for teaching with online technologies – see the last section of this email for specific TIC links to MiraCosta technologies supporting online teaching and learning. 
  • Ongoing faculty support – You can set a meeting with Instructional Designer Nadia Khan, for help with Canvas and teaching with tech. We have another instructional designer also available for 1-1 support, Stephanie Kelley, especially for faculty working on use of OER/ZTC course materials.
  • Tech Support – Canvas options include 24×7 phone and chat support. Just click the Tech Support button at lower left in Canvas! Zoom and other MiraCostatech support for faculty is available through the MiraCosta employee help desk.

Expectations and Recommendations for Faculty Teaching Online

Support for Your Students – Please help your students to be aware of and make use of these important services and resources!

  • Student Online Academic Readiness workshops – In collaboration with the library, I’ll be offering a number of these across the first nine weeks of the term – see all dates and times on the MiraCosta Online site and in Canvas announcements. These workshops engage students with resources MiraCosta provides to support them, as well as habits and attitudes of successful online students. Encourage your students to attend and, if you like, find out which of your students participated in order to incentivize their attendance. Faculty are welcome to attend as well!
  • Technology Needs – Be sure to share the form for students to fill out if they need a laptop and/or wifi hotspot to succeed this semester.
  • Tech Support – At lower left in Canvas is a button for students to quickly access Tech Support options, including 24×7 phone and chat support from Canvas, and our local MiraCosta student help desk.
  • Online Student Support Access Points – the Student Support Hub in Canvas, accessed via the Student Support button on the left in Canvas, gives quick access to online support from the library, Learning Centers, counseling, career center, open computer lab staff, student help desk, health services, CARE team, and more! The Ask the Spartan chat integrated into MiraCosta’s website provides both automated responses and the opportunity to connect to Live Chat with staff from many student support areas. The Help Hut and Online Education webpages are also great starting points for students to connect with all kinds of support services when they’re not in Canvas.

MiraCosta’s Online Education Tools

Select the links for a detailed MiraCosta-specific overview (and often, recorded Flex workshops) for each tool below. Please don’t hesitate to contact me if you have questions about these or other resources.

  • Canvas – we all use Canvas, right?
  • Adjust-All and TidyUP– make it easier to copy and reuse Canvas courses
  • DesignPLUS – a brand new Canvas visual design tool
  • Zoom – if you’re using Zoom, make sure you’re using a pro Zoom account through MiraCosta. 
  • Canvas Studio – enables faculty and students to create videos while inside Canvas. Faculty can create interactive discussion or quiz activities based on video. Auto-captioning and caption clean up tools are high-quality and easy to use, but not automatic!
  • Pronto is an incredible mobile-friendly and Canvas-integrated messaging platform that’s ready to use in every course.
  • Pope Tech helps faculty detect and correct accessibility issues within Canvas. The PopeTech dashboard tool (via the Pope Tech Accessibility course menu item) provides a course-level guide for addressing all accessibility issues in a course in one place.
  • SensusAccess provides multi-format course material accessibility and file type conversion options for students. If you notice an S symbol next to your page title and next to items in the Modules view, that’s SensusAccess.
  • Perusall is a social annotation tool available within Canvas that makes it easy for students to comment/discuss right on a text, document, or image.
  • Lab Archives Electronic Notebook is an online notebook especially useful for translating lab manuals and student notes/work into the online environment.
  • WeVideo (formerly PlayPosit) – This video interaction tool offers more complexity and options than Studio. Studio is a great place to start, but if you’re looking for more types of interactivity to add to your videos, this is a great option. 
  • Turnitin – help students learn to properly cite sources and avoid plagiarism. Also provides grading and peer review tools for written work. Turnitin has included an AI detection capability for instructors, but please beware of false positives should you use it. Most experts agree that AI detection tools are extremely unreliable.

Professional Learning for Online Teaching – Spring Possibilities

Don’t hesitate to reach out if you have any questions! Best wishes for a great spring!

 – Jim

Jim Julius, Ed.D.
Faculty Coordinator, Online Education

Canvas Start of the Semester Instructor Checklist

Create or Import your Content

Multiple ways to begin to build your class

Copy from another class in Canvas. Your access to classes you have previously taught in Canvas continues indefinitely.

Copy in an entire course or portions of one from Canvas Commons.

Create your content from scratch in Canvas

Review Assignments, Quizzes, and Discussions

  • Verify activities and content in the course are published.
  • Verify dates. Due dates are added to the calendar and the syllabus and serve as reminders to students. “Available from” and “Until” dates will unlock and lock the activity.
  • Verify instructions are accurate and well formatted.
  • Verify assignment submission types.
  • Verify number of quiz attempts is correct.
  • Verify assignment groups are set up correctly. See: How to use Assignment Index Page.
  • Verify assignments are weighted correctly, if using a weighted grading system. See: How to Weight Assignment Groups.
  • Verify discussions are ordered logically on Discussions list page.
  • Verify Quiz “Options” are correct. See: Canvas Quiz Options.

Review Course Details

Final Preparations

  •  Publish your course when you are ready for students to have access to it. This typically is on the morning of or before the official course start date. See: How do I publish a course? NOTE: Some faculty like to publish their courses well in advance of the start date, but only publish a handful of elements of the course (such as the syllabus). This allows enrolled students to “preview” the class.
  • For online and hybrid classes, encourage students to attend a Student Online Academic Readiness (SOAR) workshop. You may also wish to share the Canvas Student Orientation to help any students who are new to Canvas to have a resource for learning the basics.
  •  Especially for online and hybrid classes, send an email to your students through your SURF Roster telling them how to access your course in Canvas.

Cautions

  • Canvas email (Inbox/Conversation) messages will not be sent out if the course is unpublished. Send class messages from your SURF Roster instead, prior to publishing the course.
  • Pay attention to the time stamp on anything you have placed a date on. 12:00 means the very first minute of the selected day. For end dates, it is often best to choose 11:59 PM to ensure you are setting it up on the correct date.
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