Common Canvas mistakes that teachers should avoid

[@professorshutt4335]

Thanks for the tips. Quick question - what is the best way to resize an image? If my image is 5000 pixels, what FREE app/software can I use to resize the image down to the desired 600 pixels?

[@HowToCanvas]

It can be done in Canvas by clicking the image options, but then students would still have to "download" the image in its entirety and that might not be idea. You might try Photoshop, PowerPoint, Canva, Adobe Express, Gimp, or even just google something like "online photo resizer". I imagine there are plenty of web-based platforms available. I gave a webinar some time ago that goes into detail about how to use PowerPoint as an image editor: www.gotostage.com/channel/676f412f9c4f44639e747db295b466ed/recording/7789cfa97fed4487975f7e708bfba470/watch

[@artboy2]

Excellent work kind sir! I am impressed with how well your videos are paced with the perfect speech wpm, I also like that you present technical advice within the context of best practices and explain that really well. I would love to be able to make my lecture videos as cool as yours but Canvas studio doesn't have these advanced bells and whistles (just screen capture with postage stamp camera video). Any advice on ways I can spiffy up my videos?

[@HowToCanvas]

Glad you like them! I use Camtasia for my videos, which I think is a step up from Canvas Studio but not quite as sophisticated as the heavy lifters like Premiere and Final Cut Pro. I've made quite literally hundreds of videos and my advice is to get a workflow and for every video just try to make it a little bit better than the last. I do watch my videos and I try to take notes of how things can be better. Always try to improve, but so long as it's incremental (think: kaizen) then you're doing well. And with that, you need volume. Keep producing content.

[@samanthagroh10]

Great video with very useful tips! I really find the contact you publish so beneficial. Quick question about images with content and accessibility. I publish images like this, then add a PDF download option of the same image as I think screen-readers can access this. What are your thoughts? Thanks!

[@HowToCanvas]

Screen readers don't interpret images at all, other than reading the alt text that we provide, which is why it's important to use alt text. My personal opinion is that alt text should be one sentence and as brief as possible. There may be times when you need 2-3 sentences, but I wouldn't want that to be regular. If there is so much content in the image that you would want to provide a supplementary PDF then it's possible you may be relying too much on the image to communicate vital data. Again my opinion, but I think the bulk of the course content should be communicated either in writing, video, or audio. Video should be captioned and audio should be transcribed. The writing will be read by the screen reader.

[@shannancrider4678]

When loading pictures or creating a landing page via Canva, would it be better to compress for websites to reduce the file size?

[@HowToCanvas]

I do feel it's important to reduce the file size, even if you specify smaller dimensions on the page. Even for banners and large images, I rarely see a need for anything wider than 1000px. The larger images will require more data to download, which may be an issue for students with limited bandwidth.