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Additional Tools Language Accent Characters

Learning how to add language accent characters inside of Canvas can be difficult at best and particularly so for students who may be using a computer they cannot modify as is the case in many computer labs or testing centers.

The Language Accent tool can help easily add these characters as well as help students learn the keyboard shortcuts associated with that character.

Turning on the Language Accent tool

You can turn on additional tools using the new Design Tools Settings feature available through the Design Tools settings icon icon in the Jump menu. You can find and turn on the Language Accents among the individual tools or you can activate it by selecting the Intermediate option from the comfort levels.

Interface

Once turned on, you will see a new button below the various panels in the Design Tools sidebar. Clicking this button will open the Language Accents controls. Once you have selected a language, you will see something like this:

language accent controls (teacher version)

Using the Language Accent Characters tool for creating content

Once the Language Accent tool has been turned on:

Open the page for editing
Click Launch Design Tools.
On the Design Tools menu, click the Language Accents button.
Select the desired language from the drop down list.
Place your cursor in any input area or rich content editor where you would like to add an accent character.
Click the button for the accent you would like to add.
Click Save.

Making the tool available to students

To make this tool available for students to use in assignment submissions, discussion responses or quizzes, complete the following steps:

Open the page for editing
Click Launch Design Tools.
On the Design Tools menu, click the Language Accents button.
Toggle Let students use for responses. You should see a message in the top of the editor that looks like this:
Click Save.

Once completed, students will see a language accents button in the right sidebar which they can use to open the Language Accent Characters dialog box to insert accents into any text area in that assignment, discussion or quiz.

Note: With the new rich content editor in Canvas, the right sidebar has been removed from discussions so the button will appear at the bottom of the course navigation.

Other Resources

If you are creating content that will be in a different language from the main content, you can use the HTML Attributes tool to set the lang attribute for an element so that screen readers or other translation tools can identify the language correctly.