Identifying Modules in Canvas with Pictures

Most of my pictures as of late have been focused on my online class. Canvas, the learning management system that I am using now in my online classes, makes it possible to provide a picture for each module. The students only have to click on the picture to be directed to the appropriate module, which contains, for example, the instructions for that assignment. Because the grading is burdensome, I have been having a bit of fun choosing and creating pictures for the modules in my class. My department head has been getting the pictures that he uses from the Internet. I instead have been using pictures taken at various places or have been creating pictures at my desk. These pictures appear below.

My wife tells me that using Paint to add text to a picture is relatively easy. I played with the program but didn’t have any success with it. I instead found a website named BeFunky that makes adding text to a picture extremely easy.

Initially, my pictures described a writing assignment figuratively. I eventually decided to become more literal for some of the assignments. My students haven’t yet said which ones they prefer.

I see myself continuing to experiment with which pictures I select for my classes. At the moment, I am most pleased with Introductory Materials, Getting Started, Rhetorical Analysis, Informative Synthesis, and Postscript. Because my students this semester are mostly transfer students from either U of Kansas or Kansas State, I decided to include both institutions in the picture for the Argumentative Synthesis.

Entranced by the Blue Hour

Sometimes, after I have completed another night of grading essays for my writing classes this summer, I pull open the curtains or walk outside to water the plants before going to bed and find the early morning incredibly pretty for a number of reasons—the sun has not yet risen about the horizon, the air is at its coolest, and the birds are singing.

Only recently, after I downloaded the Exsate Golden Hour app, have I become more acquainted with both the blue hour and the golden hour, both of which appear once in the morning and once in the evening but usually for less than an hour each time.

I don’t remember finding as much enjoyment in the morning blue hour when I was younger and hurrying to work or when I was working the midnight shift and guarding KC-135’s on alert while I was stationed in Montana.

I am almost tempted to rearrange my internal clock so that I can wake up at something like 4:30 every morning. My circadian rhythm has been configured differently for so many years. I’m not sure that I can ever actually become a morning person. The idea, though, is appealing and something to consider.