As mentioned, our content is not saved to the modules. So where is it then?

«The filing drawers» of Canvas

Canvas automatically saves similar content to the same place.

In the course menu, you will always see one “filing drawer” for each content-type. If you click on Files, you will see all that all the files you have uploaded to the course, is saved here.

Test

Click on Files and see for yourself. Then click on Pages. Here you will see all the pages you created by clicking the + button from the modules overview.

Five content-types – five filing drawers

Up till now, we have worked with content-types Files and Pages. You are probably familiar with files already. Pages are much the same as web pages, a place to present text, images, videos, links etc. We will get back to how to actually do this from a Canvas page later in the course.

In addition to Files and Pages, we have three other content-types:

Quizzes: Self-grading tests, where students tick the answers and receive instant pre-defined results and feedback.
Discussions: Similar to a Facebook discussion-thread. You start a topic which the students can discuss. This can also be an assignment.
Assignments: Probably your favourite tool next to files and pages. Assignments in Canvas is a “submission folder” – where students can upload coursework requirements and more.

We will have a closer look at the different types of content later – for now it will be enough to know that they exist and where they are saved to no matter which module or page they have been linked from.

Students do not need to access the filing drawers

Beware that each of the five filing drawers have a link in the course menu. In the next module, we will among other things clean the course menu – meaning, deactivating all the tools we are not using. This includes hiding the file drawers from the students’ view. They can access everything they need from the modules overview!

How the filing cabinet and the modules are connected

This illustration describes the connection between the filing cabinet and the modules:

Filing cabinet with 5 drawers. Each drawer is named after one of the five content-types – Pages, Files, Discussions, Quizzes, Assignments. On top of the cabinet lies a A4 paper, seen in full next to the filing cabinet. The paper has the headline Modules and looks like the modules overview in a Canvas course.

Now that we know that all the content we create (or upload) is saved to the filing cabinet, we can imagine the modules overview to be a A4 paper placed on top of the filing cabinet, functioning like a tutorial or a contents page:

“To find your way through all the files, pages, assignments, quizzes and discussions, you should start from this page, move on to that file and complete this assignment.” Etc.

In the next lesson, we will see why this is useful.