Since this Canvas mini course is both about teaching Mobile Blogging & Scholarship and Canvas, I wanted to talk about the tools I am using to conduct this course.

WordPress

I am using the open source version of WordPress to host our group blog. And I am using OU Create to run WordPress (by the way, University of Oklahoma students, faculty, and staff have free access to OU Create to make their own websites).

AccessPress Anonymous Post Plugin

This WordPress plugin allows me to let students blog without the need for them to register any accounts. If you are interested in the lowering the barrier to entry for blogging in your classroom or just want a way for people to anonymously post content to a website, this tool is for you—check it out here.

Canvas Redirect Tool App

Canvas has its own "plugin" style apps that extend a course's functionality. The Redirect Tool app allowed me to add the "Post to Blog" and "View Group Blog" to the course navigation. There is a caveat to using this tool seamlessly. Websites you want to directly embed in a Canvas course must be secure https websites rather than plain http. If you use OU Create, configuring a website as https is straightforward.

Commons

If you are interested in exploring this content for yourself search in the Canvas Commons for "Mobile Blogging & Scholarship" to find and include materials from this course into your own course or to experiment with Canvas.