Canvas is the modern, open learning platform designed to help you transform learning. Instructure is the company who builds it. This is the blog where we hold it to a standard of openness, usability and reliability—and give you a glimpse of the fun we have doing it.
Showing posts with label Canvas. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Canvas. Show all posts
Thursday, 21 November 2013
New and Improved Canvas Mobile 2.0
In 1960, Disneyland opened an attraction called Mine Train Through Nature’s Wonderland. If you liked a leisurely ride past waterfalls, geysers, and animatronic critters, the mine train was boss (that’s 60s lingo for awesome). In 1979, the ride was upgraded, made totally awesome (yes, they said that in the 70s), and renamed the Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. Incorporating many of the mine train’s original features, Big Thunder is now one of Disney’s most popular attractions.
Today we’re announcing our own Big Thunder Mountain: Canvas Mobile 2.0 for Android and iOS. We’re not throwing in the 2.0 as a version number; it signals a new philosophy for Canvas Mobile.
Some Background
Mobile has been part of the Canvas story since the beginning. When we set out to write the first Canvas Mobile app, we designed it as a communication tool. Canvas Mobile 1.0 let users stay connected, but we knew it lacked full Canvas functionality.
Following its release, we visited many of our K-12 and higher ed customers. We met with students, teachers, administrators, instructional designers, and yes, even a football team. We poured over hundreds of online reviews, comments, and support issues. We even connected with mother nature.
What we discovered is that students prefer their mobile devices over anything else. Sounds obvious, but it was a big eye-opener. One faculty member told us, "We found that when we incorporate mobile devices in the classroom, students are more engaged."
Taking all this feedback into account, we set out to redesign and re-engineer Canvas Mobile.
Canvas Mobile 2.0: Complete a course on your phone
With Canvas Mobile 2.0, our overall goal was to enable students to complete all their coursework on a mobile device. We also built a foundation that will allow us to add more functionality for teachers and admins in the future. We think we’ve succeeded on both fronts and are excited to see how it goes.
Snazzy new look.Here are a few of the main features of 2.0:
New dashboard with quick views and grade peekingCourse navigation that includes the same course tabs as the WebThe ability to turn in assignments on the app, including Dropbox and Google DriveAccess to course modules, quizzes, and external tools (LTI)Widget for your Android home screenBuilt-in Mobile HelpAPI for interacting with the appAnd the feedback is already overwhelmingly positive. One student summarized it best: “Much better! Now it has everything I need to have a better Canvas experience at school.”
What’s Coming in the Future?
With 2.0 being a major rewrite from the ground up, we had to make a choice. Should we release the app for phones right away? Or should we wait until the app also supports tablets? After some consideration, we decided to get the app for phones into the hands of our mobile users now, and to release new functionality for tablets as quickly as possible.
So, the tablet version of 2.0 is currently in development. When released, it will support Apple and Android tablets. It will have some additional functionality like the ability to rotate into landscape mode. We know how important tablets are, especially to our K-12 customers with 1:1 initiatives. We waited because we wanted to get the tablet experience right.
If you haven’t done so already, head on over to the Play Store and App Store and grab the new app.
Next time you’re entering the line for Big Thunder, look behind you and you’ll see the remnants of the Mine Train tracks.
Keep learning,
Mark
A Call for Innovative Ideas: Canvas Grants are Open
When I took physics in high school, we started with Newton's laws of motion, and I was immediately intrigued. Phrases like "get the ball rolling" and "fighting an uphill battle" suddenly took on a mathematical application that I found fascinating. I like to think of action as directed motion. Action, just like motion, doesn't happen without some upfront "oomph."
Sometimes things are just cooler when they move. Kinetic art from local artist
Andrew Smith.
When we built Canvas, we put our oomph behind three guiding principles: education, innovation, and openness. Over the last few years we've worked hard to turn these ideas into actions that would make a lasting and tangible difference for students and educators.
Now we're ready to apply the forces of action and change in yet another way. Today we’re announcing the launch of Canvas Grants. We’re offering 15 grants for a total of $100k to help fuel creativity and spur innovation in education. That’s five grants of $10,000 for Higher Education and ten grants of $5,000 for K-12.
The most innovative ideas in specific categories for both HE and K-12, as judged by a panel of experts, will receive grant money, as well as other assistance from Instructure, to help get their difference-making ideas off the ground. Submissions may include (but are not limited to) content, applications, classroom techniques, tools, or some amazing thing we don’t even have a word for yet. We’ll announce the winners at SXSWedu in spring 2014.
Wondering what a panel of experts look like? Here you go:
Higher Education judges
Mike Caulfield, Washington State UniversityLarry Cooperman, OpenCourseware and UC IrvineJim Groom, University of Mary WashingtonJosh Kim, Inside Higher Ed and DartmouthGeorge Siemens, Athabasca UniversityJesse Stommel, Hybrid Pedagogy and University of Wisconsin-MadisonAudrey Watters, Hack EducationNancy White, Full Circle AssociatesK-12 judges
Steven Anderson, Web 2.0 Classroom Jaime Casap, Google Sean Junkins, Horry County SchoolsChris Lehmann, Science Leadership AcademyScott McLeod, Prairie Lakes Area Education Agency Linda Nathan, Boston Arts AcademyTom Vander Ark, Getting Smart and Learn CapitalSubmissions should fall into one of the following categories:
Higher Education categories
Facilitating competency-based learning Engaging students through academic careerBlending online and face-to-face coursesNew models of content and curriculum development and sharingApplying universal design to online learningK-12 categories
Meeting demands of standardsInvolving parents in meaningful waysSpecial education1:1 initiativesProject-based learningExtending the classroomPK-5 technologyPersonalized learning pathsUniversal design for learningSTEMNolan Bushnell, founder of Atari and Chuck E. Cheese’s, thinks that “everyone who has ever taken a shower has had an idea. It's the person who gets out of the shower, dries off, and does something about it that makes a difference.” And we think he’s onto something.
So, what are you waiting for? The education world is waiting for you to set your “oomph” in motion. Submit your brilliant idea today at www.instructure.com/canvasgrants.
Keep learning,
Brian
Chief Learning Officer
Do you have a good idea for Canvas?
Sometimes people have really good ideas. For instance, there’s a bacon alarm clock that wakes you up with the smell of bacon. Or a way to rent a grandma when yours is just too far away. Or slowly building up an immunity to iocane powder. Maybe you have a really good idea for a new product feature. And maybe you want to know how to sneak it onto the roadmap. Well, the good news is there's no sneaking necessary. Instructure has a number of established channels for soliciting and evaluating product input.
As you wish.As much as we love education– and some of us here have extensive experience in education– most of us aren’t educators, we're technologists. We take hard problems and apply the best technology available to solve those problems. That's why we need open channels of communication with the Canvas Community.
Product input comes from a number of sources:
1) Product Discussion Forums: We provide a forum for members of the Canvas community to share ideas and garner support from other Canvas users. This provides an opportunity for Canvas users to interact with each other. Occasionally the Product team will chime in with comments or a question, but we're really looking for the community to find common ground with each other. The votes and comments are very important in helping us determine which features will have the greatest impact on learning.
2) Customer and Technical Support: Every Canvas institution has an assigned Account Relationship Manager (ARM). We ask our ARMs to talk about product features and concerns with their clients and to compile those into a prioritized list. With additional input from Implementation Managers working with new clients and our Technical Support staff who understand the urgency and frequency of bug requests, we get a very clear sense of where improvements need to be made.
3) Sales: Our Sales staff constantly talks to new institutions, making contacts across the education space. It's amazing just how different and unique each institution is in their approach to teaching and learning. Even with nearly 400 schools now using Canvas, we still learn new things every day. And our prospective Canvas institutions provide tremendous insight into what we ought to be working on next.
Once we have all the feedback, it’s combined and evaluated. First, we look for urgent support items or problem areas for our current clients. If something is obstructing learning, we make every effort to quickly squash it. We then look for consensus across channels. If all the channels are saying the same thing, it's pretty clear we need to tackle that item. Lastly, we look for really innovative ideas that perhaps don't have widespread support but have tremendous potential to improve learning and we research those further. And that’s how the proverbial sausage gets made.
So, if you have an idea, we’d love to hear about it. Pick whichever of the above approaches that works best for you and send it our way.
Oh, and “no more rhyming, I mean it.”
“Anybody want a peanut?”
Keep learning,
Mitch
PS: INCONCEIVABLE!
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Canvas is the modern, open learning platform designed to help you transform learning. Instructure is the company who builds it. This is the blog where we hold it to a standard of openness, usability and reliability—and give you a glimpse of the fun we have doing it.
Faculty Perspectives on Teaching a Course with Canvas Network
Canvas is the modern, open learning platform designed to help you transform learning. Instructure is the company who builds it. This is the blog where we hold it to a standard of openness, usability and reliability—and give you a glimpse of the fun we have doing it.
Canvas’ British Invasion
Canvas is the modern, open learning platform designed to help you transform learning. Instructure is the company who builds it. This is the blog where we hold it to a standard of openness, usability and reliability—and give you a glimpse of the fun we have doing it.
Plugging Canvas into a K-12 Initiative
If you’ve traveled internationally, you probably know that North American electronic devices, which use plug types A and B, can’t be plugged into sockets on most other continents (and vice versa). So taking your laptop from the U.S. to Spain means carrying type C and F adapters in your suitcase. And if you cross the border into France, you’d better have a type E adapter, or you might as well leave your MacBook in Barcelona.
Fortunately, in the world of K-12 technology initiatives, connecting your personal learning device to Canvas isn’t so complicated. Whether you’re launching a 1:1 or a BYOD initiative, you’ll never have to worry about adapting your teachers’ or students’ devices to your school’s LMS. If your iPad, laptop, smartphone (or whatever) has an updated Web browser and access to the Internet, you’re Canvas ready.
Even if your school’s device ratio isn’t anywhere near 1:1, Canvas provides the easy-to-use, built-in tools and everywhere access to help you make flipped classrooms and other blended learning models successful. You plug in the content, and Canvas provides a place and platform to deliver it. Easy.
The Sweetwater Union High School District near San Diego recently adopted Canvas
as part of its 1:1 initiative. Within the next six years, Sweetwater will equip each of its 44,000 students with personal electronic devices. David Damico, Sweetwater’s director of Educational Technology and Alternative Education, believes the LMS a district chooses is more critical to the success of a 1:1 initiative than which personal devices students use. To learn more about how Sweetwater is using Canvas to deploy such a massive 1:1 initiative, watch the video at the link below.
http://www.instructure.com/stories-k-12
And next time you leave the continent, buy the jumbo adapter set with all 14 types of plugs and sockets—because, hey, if you decide to make a side trip for the 2014 FIFA World Cup in Brazil, you’re gonna need a type N plug.
Keep learning,
Linda Larsen
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