The school district (Montgomery County, MD) where my kids go to middle school and high school is migrating to Canvas. At Back to School Night last night, I saw aspects of the change. Evidently, the teachers just got access a couple weeks ago.
One teacher (science) jumped in and has 100% of their class content online. He clicked around through it and showed where kids, teachers and parents all have access to every single assignment, lesson and other document. He loved it, raved, and said he saw it as the way everything was going.
Another teacher noted how they haven’t gotten any training on Canvas yet and they have all of their lessons already uploaded into the previous/co-existing system, which is Google Classroom. They are planning to use Google for this school year.
I think Canvas does a whole lot more, and certainly presented things in a neater way. The analogy that comes to mind is Google Docs vs. Microsoft Office. Not so much in the local-install vs. cloud-based, since both Canvas and Google Classroom are both cloud, but in terms of feature sets and options. Google Docs/Classroom seems to be very simple to use, but basic. Canvas/MS Office seem to be much more full-featured, to handle the basics, plus lots of variations that power users would want.
I used a range of systems in college and grad school, almost all distance learning. Google Classroom wouldn’t have managed those classes. We used commercial and university-developed applications over that 20 year span of time. Canvas looks more capable than any of them, with a whole lot less tech back-end to worry about or develop. When I get my own login to the school’s system, I’ll be able to take an even better look.
Just some quick anecdotal observations from a distance-learner techie.
Justin
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Canvas is like Shopify where it creates a platform for school professors (instead of small businesses) to put their material (instead of store) on.
Basically it’s like a website for a class that I assume is easy to set up and good for students because it’s all in one place.
For example, say I enroll in “Economics 101”.
My professor emails me saying “Welcome to Economics 101, the class is now up on canvas”
I log into my canvas account(through my university) and Econ 101 is already in my dashboard without any need for me to do anything (it must be tied to registration somehow). I can click on that class and it will bring me to like a table of contents for that class. I can read a quick overview, check my assignments, hand in online assignments, check my grades, read the syllabus, etc. Almost every class I take uses Canvas (especially good for seeing your grades in a 400+ student class).
I teach and take classes using BlackBoard, and to put it bluntly, I find it hard to believe there is any way for Canvas to NOT be better than BB. I find BlackBoard to be slow, unreliable, with constant issues. I do not see a lot of capabilities in BB, at least no capabilities that I can’t get elsewhere for less money and hassle. That being said, BB is the industry standard at this point. It is ubiquitous, but it is not good. Think Windows 3.1. Compared to others it is not good, and has less capabilities, but it is already in place and the major difficulty is unseating it.
Kathleen
9 Likes
I log into my canvas account(through my university) and Econ 101 is already in my dashboard without any need for me to do anything (it must be tied to registration somehow). I can click on that class and it will bring me to like a table of contents for that class. I can read a quick overview, check my assignments, hand in online assignments, check my grades, read the syllabus, etc. Almost every class I take uses Canvas (especially good for seeing your grades in a 400+ student class).
Moodle and Blackboard (both of which I’ve used) also have this capability. Moodle seemed a bit trickier to me, but that’s probably because I began with Blackboard (both as student & teacher).
DW’s university went to Canvas not long ago. I was very surprised because by that because they kept saying they had money problems and when I suggested to an administrator they could get Moodle for free, they said something like “Instructors would never change!”. Now that I think about, DW - who definitely is not tech savvy - hasn’t complained about Canvas so maybe they’ve found a way to make things more user-friendly. (I’ll try to remember to ask her about this and comment back here with her impressions.)
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DW reports that the transition to Canvas was smooth and that it is easier to use than BB. She said she’s not sure about this, but that she seems to remember one of the things her university liked about it was that it stored things in the cloud as opposed to being on the school server. (There used to be complaints from everyone during peak demand periods such as the end of the semester when grades, assignments, etc. were all flying back and forth.)
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I’ve used Canvas and am very interested in this write-up - thanks Bear for your write-up. Looking around on the web, it seems like one of it’s strongest competitor will be a recent start-up called “Schoolology,” which has an attractive website and has won a 2017 Codie award. My impression is that Canvas has a pretty good headstart on Schoolology, though, and I plan to take a small position in INST and grow it out gradually if things continue to go well. LMS looks like a somewhat competitive space, but I believe distance learning is a growing phenomenon and there will be room for more than one winner for companies that provide good products.
Macculloch
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DW reports that the transition to Canvas was smooth and that it is easier to use than BB.
Thanks. Seems to agree with the consensus.
She said she’s not sure about this, but that she seems to remember one of the things her university liked about it was that it stored things in the cloud as opposed to being on the school server. (There used to be complaints from everyone during peak demand periods such as the end of the semester when grades, assignments, etc. were all flying back and forth.)
Really interesting…I would imagine cloud services make a lot of sense for industries like education which don’t really need to have any “latest tech” infrastructure on prem. I guess they can avoid it easily with cloud solutions.
Bear
Mac – One correction to your post. I believe the company’s name/product is Schoology. My kids’ elementary school uses it. I don’t have experience with Canvas, so no thoughts on which product is better.