Using Online Chat in Live Classes

You will need to activate Ed Discussion. Can be used with or without using Canvas.

When creating a Post, instructors have the option of making a Megathread.

Megathreads allow you to collate all questions on a specific topic or class session into a single thread. You can think of it as a live, growing, chat thread. 

Create one top-level thread with the session name or date as title. Pin that to the top of your course. Students will reply to that thread as they post their questions or comments. Each reply is treated as a separate question and can be marked as resolved individually if desired. Comments can be moderated by Instructor or TA before appearing to the entire class.

Pinned threads will appear at the top of the thread list. These will also have a purple pinned icon . They will be ordered such that the most recently pinned will be at the top of the list.

By default, only the top 3 pins will be shown. To see all of the pinned threads, you can click to show more, which appears below the third pin. At the end of class you can unpin the day’s chat, or delete as you wish. 

The Canvas Chat tool is available to host simple synchronous chats for a course. It is a simple “instant message” type chat feed for the entire run of a course. While not robust, Canvas’ Chat tool includes:

• a list of course users who are currently online
• date and time stamps on posts
• the ability to enable notifications for new posts
• the ability for an instructor to remove (but not moderate) students posts
• chat access from the Canvas Student and Teacher apps.

To use Chat, you will need to activate it in your Course Navigation menu.