Canvas is a content management program that was launched in 2008 for teachers and students. It is used in more than 3,000 universities, school districts, and institutions around the world. It is a cloud-based system that connects all the technology applications teachers use into one simple platform. It is designed to allow access to course content, files, images, and resources from the internet.
Canvas easily integrates with hundreds of applications while empowering teachers and students with countless resources to make learning and teaching easier and more fun. Canvas allows students to obtain notifications, submit paperwork, and interact with the resources shared with them. They can connect their Canvas account with their social media accounts such as Facebook and Twitter. Canvas provides teachers a platform that they can create a learning ecosystem for their students. Teachers can embed videos, provide feedback, integrate blogs, link wikis, and connect education channels while monitoring their students' progress. Here's an overview video about Canvas:
Canvas LMS is easy to use and saves teachers time while grading with features like the SpeedGrader and the ability to record audio/video during grading. It is a dependable solution and by using it you can reduce support calls and queries from students. At the same time, Canvas LMS makes the job of teachers and administrators easier. Faculty can explore the many tools and features of the app to reshape their pedagogical approach. It is a very intuitive app that offers naturalness, flexibility, and customizability. It is a modern version of Blackboard and Google Classroom as it functions as a hub for teachers to post their syllabus, assignments, and documents.
Canvas LMS is easy to use and saves teachers time while grading with features like the SpeedGrader and the ability to record audio/video during grading. It is a dependable solution and by using it you can reduce support calls and queries from students. At the same time, Canvas LMS makes the job of teachers and administrators easier. Faculty can explore the many tools and features of the app to reshape their pedagogical approach. It is a very intuitive app that offers naturalness, flexibility, and customizability. It is a modern version of Blackboard and Google Classroom as it functions as a hub for teachers to post their syllabus, assignments, and documents.
Teachers and students can access the app on their mobile devices to engage with each other anytime, anywhere. Instructors can grade students quickly and accurately. Canvas makes it easy to create courses, curriculum, and certification paths. With Canvas, users are directed to specific courses. Parents can be informed of their child's progress by automatically connecting them to their courses. Click on the video below to learn more about how Canvas works.
Benefits of Canvas
Canvas provides many user benefits such as:
Canvas has unique features that enhance the programming and user friendliness such as:
What Are the Creative Uses of Canvas and Ideas for School Leaders?
Canvas can be used to house any professional development that professional learning teams are assigned to take or desire to learn more about. Examples include:
Students say that Canvas is:
The Cisco Networking Academy endorsed Canvas as the, "World's largest classroom." To read more about Cisco's implementation on Canvas click here.
Personal Review and reflections on Canvas
There are many positives to Canvas such as it is:
- Openness - is an open source software that provides APIs, security audits, and feature discussions.
- Customizability - has an extensive, open API to plug in third-party apps for data import and export.
- Pedagogical Flexibility - offers an app center to search, install, and add technologies to.
- Reliable Support - experts provide prompt and reliable support to maintain speed.
- High Speed - fast due to being hosted on Amazon Web Service platform.
- Assured Security - conducts regular internal audits of independent security specialists for public publishing.
- Scalability - scales up to demand with automated peak load management.
- Uptime - uptime Service Level Agreement.
- Low Risk - cloud based so there are no upgrades, downloads, or migrations of new versions.
Canvas has unique features that enhance the programming and user friendliness such as:
- Collaborative workspaces
- Audio and video recording and uploading
- Video and audio messages
- Integrated learning outcomes
- Web-standard browser
- Customized user profiles
- Content editor
- Web conferencing tools
- RSS support
- Course notifications
- Graphic analytics reporting engine
- Mobile app for iOS and Android
- Integrated media reporting
- Cut and paste links from the Web browser
- Integrated tools like Google Documents and Etherpad
- External service integration like Facebook and Google share resources
What Are the Creative Uses of Canvas and Ideas for School Leaders?
Canvas can be used to house any professional development that professional learning teams are assigned to take or desire to learn more about. Examples include:
- mClass basics
- reading fundamentals
- the science and art of teaching reading
- 3 Ms of math (modeling, manipulatives, and math talk)
- fire drills - common regulation infractions and documentation of drills
- crisis table talk exercises
- 504 process
- introduction to special education
- school finance for budget managers
- school based trainings for sexual harassment, restraint and seclusion, and blood borne pathogens training
- lockdown drill steps and documentation of drills
Students say that Canvas is:
- interactive
- engaging
- self-paced
- makes learning
- accessible at school and home
- easy to use
- saves time
- mobile-friendly
- dependable
- enhances the learning experience
- doesn't hold instructors/students/administrators back
- informative
- versatile
- an online tutorial
- better than outdated textbooks
International Technology Society for Educators said, "Canvas is the most usable, customizable, adaptable, and reliable learning platform. It is adopted faster and deeper than any other learning management system. Canvas makes learning and teaching easier for everyone."
The Cisco Networking Academy endorsed Canvas as the, "World's largest classroom." To read more about Cisco's implementation on Canvas click here.
Personal Review and reflections on Canvas
There are many positives to Canvas such as it is:
- Simplified: The dashboard of Canvas is not littered with many icons or information. It is easy to sync the system to a common email to receive notifications and communications from the course instructor.
- Organized: Canvas has a calendar with due dates, to do list, and is very easy to communicate with course instructors. Canvas replaces the need for a daily planner.
- Supported: One can seek technology help twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.
- Continuous: Students in K-12 can utilize Canvas so high school students come to highschool accustomed and skilled at using the learning management tool.
- Versatile: Canvas is expansive and can be used for several purposes, including self-paced lessons.
Even though Canvas is a good tool, there are many areas for improvements such as:
- Click Happy: This program has too many clicks to get to the desired file. There is not an intuitive path to follow as there are many extra buttons. For instance, pictures must be uploaded to files before being linked to a forum discussion. It just has too many steps.
- Discussion Board: Comments on the discussion board are listed separately. It gets confusing when there are a lot of reply comments. Reply comments need to be hooked to the original post or in the same thread. Multiple conversations can be difficult to follow.
- Collaboration: Canvas is missing the large white board space where collaborators can all work together on a document to edit. When they work offline together and want to submit one document, there is not a way for course instructors to grade one project and assign grades to multiple students. Each student has to individually upload the assignment.
- Connection: The program needs to allow students to link documents from Google drive into Canvas. Without this capability, students have to convert Google documents to word documents to upload them.
- Accessibility: Unless the creator of the Canvas course makes sections of a course unavailable to students before a certain date, all content is accessible at once. This can be overwhelming for the course user and a course spoiler for the course creator. It creates the problem of too much too soon.
- Not Intuitive: The interface takes time to understand and is not intuitive at first. The more time users spend learning Canvas, the more comfortable they will become with it.
References
AISD Digital Learning. (2016, May 3). Getting Started in Canvas (for teachers). Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGNIQAVObkI.
Canvas. (2019, February 22). Retrieved from https://www.canvaslms.com/.
CanvasLMS. Canvas Network. (2015, September 21). The Cool Things You Can Do With Canvas. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TdDS6gVdI10.
EdSurge. (2019, February 18). Retrieved from https://www.edsurge.com/product-reviews/canvas.
Finances Online. (2019, February 24). Retrieved from https://reviews.financesonline.com/p/canvas-lms/.
AISD Digital Learning. (2016, May 3). Getting Started in Canvas (for teachers). Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGNIQAVObkI.
Canvas. (2019, February 22). Retrieved from https://www.canvaslms.com/.
CanvasLMS. Canvas Network. (2015, September 21). The Cool Things You Can Do With Canvas. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TdDS6gVdI10.
EdSurge. (2019, February 18). Retrieved from https://www.edsurge.com/product-reviews/canvas.
Finances Online. (2019, February 24). Retrieved from https://reviews.financesonline.com/p/canvas-lms/.
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