For a recent post about Canvas for instructors, see: Final Exam Best Practices.
By April Pelt, E-Learning Strategist at Clemson Online
Canvas, Clemson’s new learning management system, will roll out university-wide in January 2017. Praised by faculty and students alike as “intuitive” and “easy to use,” Canvas offers the highest guaranteed uptime in the industry, robust user support, and a rich array of tools for teachers and learners.
As Clemson makes the switch to Canvas, here are five things that instructors need to know about the platform:
Canvas is reliable
Canvas guarantees an industry-leading 99.9% uptime, which translates to fewer than nine hours of downtime per year. Because Canvas is cloud based, it isn’t subject to local server outages. Instead, it’s hosted by Amazon Web Services, which means that Clemson users will experience very few—if any—service interruptions.
The reliability of Canvas also extends beyond guaranteed uptime. Should you encounter a problem or require assistance, Canvas offers 24/7 user support in the forms of live text chat, a toll-free hotline, comprehensive user guides, and an active user community. To access Canvas support, click the “Help” icon at the bottom-left of Canvas’s primary navigation menu.
Canvas is customizable
The basic user interface and navigation of Canvas does not vary from course to course, providing students with a consistent user experience. However, instructors can customize the look and feel of their courses by adding and removing items from the course navigation menu and implementing design elements that reflect the course’s content or their personal style. Instructors don’t need to have web design experience to customize their courses; the rich content editor offers an array of design tools that enable all users to create attractive, user-friendly pages.
Users may also customize their Canvas experience by color coding courses on the dashboard, adding items to their personal calendar, and setting their notification preferences.
Canvas is mobile
Canvas can go wherever you go. In addition to working in all up-to-date web browsers (including Respondus Lockdown Browser), Canvas offers free apps for Android and iOS devices. The Canvas app, designed for students and teachers, supports most course-related tasks, including reading content, watching videos, completing quizzes, and participating in discussion forums. Instructors can also use the SpeedGrader app to evaluate student work. While some design elements display differently on the mobile apps than they do in a web browser, course functionality is largely the same across multiple devices.
Canvas is friendly
While its features are powerful on their own, Canvas also plays nicely with a wide variety of educational apps and tools, including YouTube, Adobe Connect, Box, Dropbox, Quizlet, and VoiceThread. The Canvas App Center (available under “Settings” in the course menu) offers an extensive library of apps that you can integrate into your course or user account. In addition to playing nicely with external tools and apps, Canvas can integrate publisher content and tools into your course site.
Canvas also encourages collaboration among course participants. Student groups are simple to create and use, and Google Docs integration makes it quick and easy to share a document with individual students, groups of students, or an entire class.
Canvas can simplify your workflow
From feature-reach assignment tools to a calendar feature that allows you to track your teaching, service, and research obligations, Canvas is designed to help you make the most of your time. Chief among Canvas’s productivity tools is SpeedGrader, a web-based tool that allows you to evaluate, annotate, and comment on student work within a browser window or app. When combined with integrated rubrics—another time-saving Canvas feature—the SpeedGrader more than lives up to its name.
Ready to get started?
Faculty members are encouraged to become familiar with Canvas ahead of Blackboard’s decommissioning in Summer 2017. There are a variety of resources for making the transition:
Attend an on-campus drop-in with Jonathan Lashley, the Canvas Transition Lead. He hosts weekly drop-ins where faculty and students can share experiences, ask questions, and demo features. Join him on Wednesday afternoons from 1:30-3:30 in the Learning Resource Center (203 Edwards Hall) and on Thursday afternoons from 2:00-4:00 in the Digital Media Lab in Tillman Hall. For a complete schedule of these drop-in events, visit clemson.edu/online/events.
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The group work template will aid you in deriving the skeleton of the group work and planning ahead for group assignments.
