There are several different ways to communicate and collaborate with fellow students and teachers in Canvas including announcements, messages, chatting, collaborating, and conferencing.

Announcements
- Used by instructors to communicate with all members of a course about course activities, important information, and post interesting course-related topics. Students may be able to reply to announcements, but replies are not considered to be a conversation and do not appear in the Inbox.
Canvas Messaging (Inbox)
- Depending on your notification preferences, you can send and receive direct email-like messages to and from your instructor and/or classmates. Please note that Canvas messaging is not the same as your Bucks email; it is important to routinely check your Canvas Inbox AND your Bucks email for messages. Your Canvas Inbox is located in the global navigation menu on the left (icon that looks like a piece of paper coming out of an envelop).

Discussions
- Canvas provides an integrated system for class discussions. Discussions allows for interactive communication between two or more people and users can participate in a conversation with an entire class or group.
- Discussions can also be created as an assignment for grading purposes. For example, your instructor may post a discussion topic or question and require everyone to respond. You may also be asked to interact with your classmates by replying to their response.
- Discussion topics can be organized as focused or threaded discussions. Focused discussions only allow for two levels of nesting, the original post and subsequent replies. Threaded discussions allow for infinite levels of nesting. Focused discussions are relatively short-lived interactions, while threaded discussions allow replies within replies and may last for a longer period of time.