To facilitate direct communication between users, as opposed to general information posted within a course, the Conversations feature in Canvas allows you to send messages directly to individual users or to groups of users. While we will discuss how to send messages to multiple users in this section, we will later discuss the Announcements feature, which is a more practical option when disseminating information to everyone within a specific course. Canvas organizes individual messages into conversations based upon the users involved in the exchange, so in the following sections, the term "message" refers to an individual entry of a conversation.

Most of the messages that appear in the Conversations feature of Canvas are messages that users send directly to one another. However, as you get further into your course, you will notice that other messages, such as comments left on submitted assignments, also appear in your conversations. The following sections...