CANVAS Erfahrungen

I've used a couple of alternatives both as a student and as an educator and this has by far the best user experience. This one helps going straight to what you need to do with it. I like how it doesn't try to add a lot of functionality that no one will ever use. The features it has are great and the way to access them just makes sense. When we changed to Canvas, we all agreed at my institution that it was one of the best decisions we have ever taken.

I would like to have the option as an admin to disable some features. Take forums as an example, my students use social media for pretty much anything or some other stuff. That fact that forums are there is nice, but if you won't ever use it, I would like to be able to remove it.

I like the sidebar the most since it doesn't take up a lot of space on the page and is clear about what it has.

If you don't download the app, you won't be notified of any missing assignment; it would be nice if it sent a notification to your email. For example, my class requires us to post on the discussion board but there is never a notification if someone has commented or replied to your post.

The card view seems pointless to have since it's an extra and unnecessary step. I would prefer the list view to have the classes in different colors instead of different pictures with the same blue overlay.

The first thing I noted about Canvas is that when creating content, the page looks like an MS Word document. This makes creating pages with content easy as the learning curse is very gentle. There is very little need to be technical. It is more a matter of formatting rather than getting to know the software platform itself.

The dashboard is clean and modern with easy navigation on the left sidebar for courses, account information, calendar, inbox and help. Your default home is your published and unpublished courses. On the courses tabs, are announcement and conversation icons that notify if a course has issues you need to attend to in a specific course.

The settings menu is straightforward with nothing cryptic even for non-technical people.

Setting up courses is a breeze with a 'Course Setup Checklist' button available inside each course shell you create. There is a walkthrough for each element of a course from content to publishing your course. If you have an existing course you can simply import the course with several formats supported including but not limited to Blackboard, Moodle and zip. For educators at various institutions, they can just import and customize where the need arises for the different institutions.

Assessment types include quizzes and assignments. It also integrates easily with other services like Google Drive, Office/Docs and others.

Video elements management needs improvement, the thumbnails are poor quality and very small. There is no option to edit them. To get a good visual of Office elements needs embedding the content hosted somewhere else. Natively on the platform PDF and PPT display poorly with just vertical scrolling. Exporting An exported courses from Canvas is in a custom format that is not compatible with other LMS platforms. This makes it hard to move between platforms. There not much customization of learning elements compared to other LMS available. Some of the support documentation is dated and needs updating.

This software is very well organised with minor issues. I think as a user of 2+ years, I am extremely satisfied with the software. Although there are some minor improvements to be made, I believe that this software is the future of remote higher education.

I think my major complaint about this software would be the fact that hiding and/or deleting certain courses' cards/lists isn't an option. When one year is over and another begins, half of the courses still on my dashboard can be considered clutter and are no longer needed. I think another feature that would make organising easier is editing the name of the course on my dashboard. Organisations usually title their courses in the same format with minimal changes which does make it harder to differentiate from one another. Adding subtle features that allow for personalising your dashboard without compromising the content of the courses would be helpful, I believe.

Very user-friendly interface, easy to find what you are looking for with clear icons and titles being displayed.
For general areas such as courses, dashboard and calendar they are easy to use, and you can even add reminders to your calendar besides those posted by teachers.

Sometimes, once you are inside a class within the software it may vary drastically from teacher to teacher. The software allows for customization therefore it can cause confusion for students for there is not only 1 format to visualize the classes.

When Canvas became our LMS for e-learning I was delighted. Having a secure, self-contained platform was a game-changer for teachers and students. Using SSO (single sign on) enabled users to access their classes easily and without fail. The course customization and integration with other tools (OneNote, Google, Flipgrid, Formative, etc.) made advanced users look like wizards of course design. The calendar feature which allows students to track and plan for assignments empowers learners.

Canvas was ahead of the curve when it comes to individual feedback. Their voice or video comment feature has been personalizing the virtual classroom for years. Canvas is great for Professional Develpment especially with the discussion feature. Learners can respond to and interact with one another asynchronously and this authentic interaction benefits students and teachers alike.

There were times when the customization features were not enough in Canvas. The platform itself is not visually appealing at first. The user has to carefully desing the course, beginning with the end in mind, to make it visually appearing and navigable for the learner.

Additionally, it may just have been our district instance but the integration with PowerSchool gradebook was both a plus and a minus. Teachers loved that interaction as it saved so much time grading. When that interaction had glitches it was a nightmare and sometimes difficult to solve or to find the root cause. This was often the fault of browser updates or software bugs, not Canvas.

The thing I like most about Canvas is the user interface and the ease of use. Canvas makes it very easy to provide students with all course materials that used to be copied and handed out in class. Not only does this save time and effort, but it is great for the environment. I have been trained several times on Canvas though it is quite easy to learn and use. Once you become accustomed to the nuances of using it, you start to appreciate its design. I really appreciate the tools that are available with Canvas such as the attendance feature and the ability to integrate publisher's materials.

The thing I like least about Canvas is the lack of ease of importing test banks from publishers. I am not sure if this is due to Canvas or the publishers. But I try to avoid using quizzes as much as possible. I hate to type 60 questions and answers for each test and for each class. I usually give 5 exams per class and I typically teach 3 different classes.

Canvas is a software that I have been using for multiple years now, having used it originally in school, and now in college at Georgetown University while also making use of the software's organizational benefits as an Intern at EY. There are a few aspects of this program that stand out to me as being significantly beneficial. Firstly, Canvas, as a platform, is used for connecting users in an organization (class, work project, team, etc.) under one platform. The administrator (boss, professor, team leader) can then publish documents, quizzes, links, and other files so that its users can all view them, without the need for the administrator to send these files to each user individually. Perhaps the largest pro of a software like Canvas is that, on the same platform where files are published and shared with others, users can also engage in blog posts, discussions, Zoom conferences, and more features; all of which allow them to communicate with and learn from each other while also becoming familiar with any material posted by their boss, team leader, or professor. This synergy is what makes canvas special and unique; it is a one-stop-shop for individuals in an organization to parttake in multiple means of learning, all in the same location.

Despite being a phenomenal software platform, perhaps one of its downfalls is that, when using CANVAS in school or in college, the dashboard can get relatively messy. When enrolled in many different classes across different semesters, older classes tend to stay on your dashboard and this can make it difficult to keep your new classes a priority at first glance. While this is easy to edit in your Canvas settings, I personally believe this should be something that the user can edit from the homepage. In addition, it would be a large plus to the aspect of organization if users could customize the menu bar on the left side of the website, to only show the tabs they want to see for each class or project (files, modules, pages, discussions, announcements, grades, etc.)

I first used Canvas long before I ever even entered college as a high school student. However, throughout the years the platform has always remained extremely easy to use and provided me stable and secure access to my course content. With the advent of online learning brought on by the pandemic, I began to use Canvas even more this past year as a current junior in college. Reflecting on my increased use of the platform over the past year, I can appreciate how Canvas has remained not only reliable and convenient to use, but also innovative in that they have continued rolling out updates which make the platform even better, such a the "like" feature which enables students to engage more with their classmates' responses on discussion posts.

The one feature which could be improved on Canvas would be more clear instructions on how to update your profile photo! One of my professors requested that we change our profile photos to a picture of ourselves last week, and while I was eventually able to do so successfully, it took me a little but to figure out where to take this action.

Canvas is a great organizing tool. Some pros include the following: a calendar with due dates, to-do list, easy to use, tabs that is very easy to locate, the what if feature, easy to communicate with teachers, pleasing to the eye, has a mobile app, coming up assignment features, viewing files without downloading them, break down of your grade, and very simple. With this system, I did not have the need to buy a planner to write down all my assignments.

There is not too much I dislike about the system. Though the system is very organized, if the instructor does not put the files in an organized manner it can be hard to seek the desired files. In addition, there are some times where canvas can be very difficult to use as you have to click different features to get to the desired file. In addition, for the discussion page, it would be super helpful if the reply comments could be in a file with the original comment of the discussion board. In one class, we have weekly discussions and the students of that subjects has to write a powerpoint to explain a character that defines it and the student who did not create that has to write comments for it. At first it was not much but later became very hard to locate the different power point comments due to the immense amount of reply comments.

Canvas from an administrator side is incredibly easy to work with. Installing addons takes just seconds in comparison to the fear I experienced in installing anything in Blackboard, and the confusion I experienced trying to set anything up in D2L.
One of the deciding factors in moving forward with Canvas was ease of use for our faculty and students. If Canvas was not easy to use our transition would have been near impossible.
It's mobile app is excellent for students and they are in the middle of improving their faculty mobile app now.
They have an incredible Community that has asked most of the questions you have and someone has provided the answer you're looking for. There are also folks that create customizations and share those with everyone to help improve your workflows. They also let you in on the development process and share with your their progress and let you beta test things for them.
I love having a beta server, test server and production server to work with that is always up to date.
Lots to love about Canvas.

There are some features that are lacking from Canvas that we are attempting to work around or build customizations for.
1. Set Discussion boards to need grading after x number of posts. Right now it says it needs to be graded after the first post and will not notify the instructor once they have submitted the required amount of posts. This isn't as big of an issue when there are due dates but a majority of our courses do not have due dates.
2. It's Outcomes capabilities are lacking. They have plans to improve on this but it may be awhile.
3. They are releasing a new quizzing tool in 2018 which we are excited for but are worried about how we will need to go about migrating quizzes.

The platform is very easy and flexible to navigate so, you can be sure that you’ll never be lost while searching for the material you need. Besides, you can add text, upload pictures and videos without difficulty. In addition to this if you know how to work with HTML code you can have the design you like. The next thing that I like about Canvas is that you can communicate with your teacher and fellow students easily. You can send an email to your teacher or start a chat with your classmates. Canvas is used by educational institutions for two purposes: either for creating courses that are taught exceptionally online or for blending the traditional way of teaching with online one. This platform is especially useful for students who always need to find all the material on their course online, including the textbooks, lectures, homework, individual works and of course, their grades and attendance. Canvas makes collaboration between teachers and students more effective and fruitful.

It is fascinating to know that the Canvas app is available on mobile devices. However, the app needs some improvements because some features are still not available there and notifications sometimes don’t pop up.
The platform successfully cooperates and works with third-party vendors. However, I should mention that some programs do not work well and obviously they need to get improvements.
And finally, there sometimes some glitches may occur but I wish the platform could work more smoothly.