Canvas vs. Microsoft Powerpoint

It is really well suited for school situations like knowing what [assignments] need to be done when, getting feedback, getting points, finding the slides that the teacher used for explaining an [assignment] or theory. I think It would be less suited in business situations because it's [primarily] made to be a [one-way] communication tool for schools. Businesses need more control on individual levels I think[.]

Incentivized

The learning curve with Microsoft Powerpoint is not too steep, and most everyone can create really nice-looking presentations. The thing I like most about the new advancements in Microsoft Powerpoint comes to formatting. If you are creating a newsletter, don't get bogged down by all of the annoying formatting rules and issues you would have if creating in Publisher or Word. Microsoft Powerpoint makes it very simple. You can add text boxes and move them anywhere on the page. The templates are a nice touch, but they could use more, as most of these are outdated. I believe there are many free websites for downloading more templates.

Incentivized

• Creativity options for teachers to create a virtual space that still has fun graphics and accessibility options.
• Canvas has versatility in viewing options for assignment due dates such as the calendar built in feature as well as the dashboard options to display upcoming and due assignments.
• Allowing teachers to create community with each other and collaborate in each-other's space.
• Discussion platforms within classrooms for students to communicate with each-other and with their teachers.
• Easy messaging portal within each virtual classroom.

Incentivized

• Insert Photos from my computer and from the web with ease.
• Auto arrangement of graphics and texts is made available through suggested formatting.
• Spell check as I type is very valuable to me. It autocorrects many words. I like for my presentation to be accurate.
• The ability to change any font or any size of font is very valuable to me.
• The ability to cut and past from Microsoft Word is valuable to me. It also allows me to import tables I have already created in Word.

Incentivized

• Their integration with Big Blue Button was a bust for distance learning. Would be great to see them collaborate with Zoom or Google Meets.
• Their "feature request" process is slow and cumbersome at times because it relies on user "up votes" to get ideas addressed by the developers.
• They seem to have a lot of turn-over with their staff. We get a new Customer Success Manager far more frequently than with other vendors.

Incentivized

• 3D objects that can be manipulated in slideshows by presenters
• AI tool to cleanup presentations
• AI tool to create graphics
• AI tool to create photo-realistic images
• AI tool to create vector art
• AI tool to create videos
• Blender 3D object importer

Incentivized

The other LMS tools have fallen behind. One reason is they are not able to update their systems, features, toolsets in a timely manner. While other LMS providers release bug fixes and new features several times a year, schools struggle to install and implement them in a timely manner. It is not uncommon for a school to take 6 months to a year to fully install and implement new releases on other LMS platforms. With Canvas, those features are released every 3 weeks, and there is nothing for a school to do other than choose to turn them on once released. This has allowed Instructure to innovate faster, and get new features and tools to customers quicker. Other factors include great pricing, customer support, and the innovative way in which LTI is implemented in the tool.

Incentivized

The functions in Canvas are well integrated and consistent across the application, and mostly intuitive. Overall navigation and setup is streamlined through integrated features and navigation. The feedback we've gotten from our program participants is that it is easy to learn to use. It also integrates well with third party software like Google Docs and Blackboard Collaborate web conferencing software

Incentivized

It’s great overall! I can think of a few improvements that would make it a 10, for example: better Smart Art graphs, automatic distribution of columns and rows in tables, and being able to more easily save templates for graphs. For example, if I could determine that a same brand name in all graphs would have a specific color, it would be great

Incentivized

I've never had any issues with its availability. As it is installed on my machine, it's ready when I need it, online or offline. Creating large slide decks with complex elements like video and audio doesn't affect its stability. The only limitation would be the capability of your own computer, as far as I can tell.

Incentivized

The performance is very strong. It loads reasonably quickly. Large presentations load relatively quickly too, given their complexity, and once loaded each slide is readily available. It's easy to scroll up and down through your slide deck and go to the slide you want. Videos, pictures and music all load on demand, controllable by clicks.

Incentivized

I do not personally use Canvas support since we have a central office that helps us. However, our central office always has the answers we need and are always able to solve our issues - so I would assume that get great support from the Canvas team on their end. They also offer great training, which uses materials directly from Canvas

Incentivized

I have never had to use the actual support. Most of my questions are "how to" questions and there is a rich internet full of users sharing their tips and tricks with this application. Sometimes I find the answers on Microsoft support site but often I don't

Incentivized

The training sessions were broken down into several days as well as different levels depending upon the knowledge of the user

Incentivized

The online tutorials and videos are very clear and addressed the issues/questions that I had about using the system.

Incentivized

Once you purchase and sign the contract there is nothing to install or hardware to buy. You can almost immediately start using it and have courses up and going within weeks. We signed in December and had pilot courses online ready to go for the start of school in January

Incentivized

Canvas is more secure, has a cleaner design, and has more features. For the features, they have in common canvas still stacks up against [Smart school] by going for the extra mile. Besidfor e that, [the] canvas looks a lot more [professional] than [Smart school]. I didn't make the decision myself to get canvas instead of [Smart school] but I'm happy they did.

Adobe Illustrator is an excellent software but it's not easy to use for [everyone without] having any training or previous experience in working with illustrator. Microsoft Powerpoint is very easy to use and it's fantastic as it saves time more than illustrator. Another thing is it takes small space while illustrator takes a significant amount of space in the business machine

Incentivized

Scaling up use of Microsoft Powerpoint would be a simple case of buying further licences. The software is intuitive and therefore training demands from scaling it to more departments or more individuals would be relatively straightforward. Google Slides may be easier to share among those organisations that use Google's suite of apps, however.

Incentivized

• Canvas has helped us provide a more robust online component to our courses.
• Canvas has helped us better adapt to a rapidly changing educational landscape.
• Canvas has reduced the time that we have to spend training faculty on how to use our learning management system.

Incentivized

• Helped reduce time we spend modifying and sharing back and forth different versions.
• Saved us the frustration of having to work with an online program with limited functionalities.
• Macros make it easy to share data in one excel file and automatically update presentation.

Incentivized