What Instructors and Students Can Learn Using Canvas
October 29, 2015
What Instructors and Students Can Learn Using Canvas
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Overall Satisfaction with Canvas
Canvas is in use across the whole organization.
- Syllabus makes it easy for an instructor to communicate with students on what will be required of them throughout the course providing a chronological order of assignments/events.
- Discussion Board allows the instructor and students to interact asynchronously deploying text, images, audio, or video and attach files. They may be graded or non-graded.
- Student Groups facilitate semester/term-long projects for students to communicate and iterate on documents, share media files, create discussions and collaborate synchronously.
- Peer Reviews enable students to comment on work by their peers. A tool that allows communication between students. An instructor can require students to submit their assignment before reviewing their peers.
- The video guide heading has labeling for All Users, Administrators, Community, Instructors, Students, Observers, Canvas Commons, and Canvas Network. Video tutorials are essential for answering instructor questions, guiding students on the use of assignment overview and submission, using chat or collaboration along with working in groups, peer reviews, and taking quizzes. Tutorials represent the Canvas features that include Asynchronous/Synchronous Learning, Classroom management, Live-Video Conferencing, Mobile Learning, Skills Tracking, Social Learning, and Testing/Assessments. Learning Tools Interoperability (LTI) interface (approved by the institution). For example, facilitate academic textbook publishers’ robust learning/assessment tools to interact within an instructor’s course, etc. Assistance from our institution provides telephone and one-on-one Canvas support from our instructional designers at the Center for Faculty Excellence or Information Technology Services (ITS). Yet, we have experienced challenges using Canvas.
- Canvas and Turnitin services undergo scheduled maintenance. It is important for instructors to schedule course work accordingly to offset problems during scheduled maintenance. Our institution publishes this information when an instructor or student logs into Canvas. IT remains proactive by providing access to the Canvas release notes for the latest features and upgrades in conjunction when the upgrades occur.
- We have yet to experience the perfect LMS. Canvas has its share of challenges. Instructors find difficulty when communicating to students using Canvas within a specific course having multiple course sections. For example, working in an undergraduate health course that has three similar combined sections, an instructor must initiate a conversation from the Canvas “Inbox” specific to each section, and is unable to communicate with all combined sections from the primary health course.
- Upgrades and changes within the LMS during a given semester/course term provide a mild annoyance for instructors. For example, Canvas made a location change (i.e., allowing students to attach a file to a discussion. Permission was moved from the instructor view within a discussion to the course “Settings,” then “Course Details” tab and moving down and selecting the “more options” link and clicking on the radio button “Let students attach files to discussions” while then selecting “Update Course Details” to enable this option.
- Another challenge is having the instructor and students remain current with software upgrades as it’s integral to ensuring a successful experience with the Canvas LMS. For example, a Spanish instructor wanted her students to record a video within Canvas of students speaking Spanish as a video assignment. Multiple issues presented themselves since Canvas requires the most recent upgrade to Adobe Flash Player and web browsing software to accomplish the task. When students used on campus computer labs, current updates were not equally applied throughout the labs. A similar challenge followed with student’s personal computers, consistently keeping their software up-to-date to accommodate specific tools within the Canvas LMS. Recording within the Canvas environment is functional when one is running the most current upgrades to their web browser and Adobe Flash Player. Collaboration and interaction with our instructional designers and ITS resolved the above instructor/student video assignment challenge.
- Canvas does a great job providing multiple pathways for instructors and students to find answers or solutions to questions about its Cloud-based LMS. An invaluable tool for instructors is the “Canvas Production Release Notes,” “Canvas Guides,” and our institution's commitment to access instructional designers and ITS support staff. Change is part of our technology and learning environment that requires upgrades and bug fixes. Canvas by Instructure provides these with an explanation for the changes and fixes within their cloud-based LMS.
Canvas is the evolving LMS for improvement, organization, and implementation toward a robust student-centric learning environment. Another important aspect of the Canvas LMS is its ability to harness customer input, feedback, and collaboration for product improvement via its online community, Canvas Guides. The Canvas Guide is a comprehensive resource for instructors, students, administrators, and those working within the Canvas LMS. Instructors and students have an LMS pathway to engage, connect, and excel beyond a course’s intended learning outcome. We need to do our part to remain up-to-date and evolve within our respective academic community with the robust cloud-based Canvas by Instructure LMS.