Most importantly

The Big Blue Button link should be the first item in the Canvas menu for each of your classes. This is the number one thing that keeps students from getting into your class. You can change the position of items in your Canvas menus in Settings (bottom of the menu) and then the Navigation tab (along the top).

Big Blue Button Help

• There are lots of video tutorials on how to use Bug Blue Button as a teacher, including:
  • Instructor Overview
  • Using the Layout Manager
  • Using Breakout Rooms
  • Using Polls
  • Using the Multi-user Whiteboard
  • Many others
• There is also a series of articles on Canvas and Big Blue Button.

How to start a Big Blue Button Conference

• Do not schedule your Big Blue Button classes ahead of time. This will confuse both parents and students. But you can Create it ahead of time and start it 5 minutes before class begins. Click on the BigBlueButton link and then +Add Conference.
  
  
• Make sure “Enable waiting room” and “Add to Calendar” are unchecked, then click on the Attendees tab at the top.
  
  
• On the Attendees tab:
  • Turn on “Remove all course observer members” so you don’t accidentally get a bunch of parents.
  • Set “See other viewers webcams” as you desire (some teachers find that it distracts students to see each other, some teachers find that it holds students accountable. NOTE: there seems to be a problem with BigBlueButton showing users at this time. Canvas doesn’t think there is anything they can do about this.
  • Make sure that “Send public chat messages” and “Send private chat messages” are turned off. You will always be able to send messages to students, and students will always be able to send messages to you.
  • Then click the Create button in the bottom right.
    
    
• This will create a new conference that you can start 5 minutes before class time.
  
  

When you start your conference

• Make sure that you give permission for Big Blue Button to use your microphone and webcam. This is pretty straight forward. But you might have to click the microphone and webcam buttons at the bottom of the screen to actually turn them on.

General tips and tricks

• Breakout Rooms
  • In the Messages/Notes/Users sidebar on the right
  • Click on the gear icon to the right of USERS
  • Click Create breakout rooms
• Layout Manager
  • You can control the layout of student screens from the vertical ellipse in the upper right. They said it helped a lot when I changed them to “Focus on Presentation” when I wanted to share my screen last time, but this time they said it didn’t help, so maybe ask them. They can also enlarge the presentation (or screen you are sharing) with the expand button in the upper right corner of the little box that holds the presentation.
• Muting students
  • If you click on a student name in the list on the left, you can easily turn off their mic, especially if they don’t realize it is on and you are getting background noise. 
• Screen share from your iPad:
  • 1) Have your iPad connected via a cable not through mirroring
    2) Open Quicktime 
    
    
    3) Start a movie recording in Quicktime
    
    
    4) From the dropdown menu in Quicktime (next to the red record button) click on your iPad
    
    
    5) In Big Blue Button, Click share screen
    
    
    6) Click Window at the top
    7) Click the Quicktime window
    
    
    
    
    Your screen should be sharing after that.