Sunday, October 11, 2015

Canvas LMS Structure and Instructional Design of a Course

As I have begun to design a course in Canvas for my Technology based Learning Environments master’s course, I feel that I have been at a slight advantage over my classmates. This year, our school district purchased the Canvas Learning Management System (LMS) for all teachers and staff to use. Although I never received any formal training, I have learned to use the system through the built in videos and documentation in Canvas. As a result, I have been training teachers on how to use the system for several months now.
With that said, as I worked on my instructional design document, I already had a fairly clear picture of what the Canvas LMS had to offer. I knew the structure of Canvas and how I could use the different pieces in the design of this course. Additionally, I have been able to share some of my knowledge with classmates for this course since the LMS was new to them. Although I do not know everything there is to know about Canvas, I know enough to create a course. Additionally, I learned a couple of things while conducting the peer review for my classmate. I did not realize that there are built in templates that can be used to get a course started. Knowing this will help me with teachers in my district that have a tough time figuring out the organization for their course.
The design model of Canvas is working great for me. I am dividing my course up into Modules that the participants will work through. I have set up the modules with pre-requisites so that students must work through them in sequential order. However, students can always go back to previous modules to review content if needed. Since this course will be offered to my teachers over a 10 week period, this will help me in facilitating the course while it is in progress.

Canvas is a very user friendly atmosphere for both the designer and the student. Additionally, the Help documentation and videos are easy to access and understand. If I have any questions at all, I can quickly find answers to them. The only thing I have found so far that I would like to see enhancements made is in the rubrics. First, the rubric does not align the rating columns as you add additional ratings to the rubric. It really bothers me that they do not line up. However, the interactivity while grading student assignments makes it easier for me to forgive this issue. Furthermore, the rubrics cannot be shared with other teachers or colleagues through the Commons area. This has been a major frustration for our teachers. They would like to be able to share these rubrics with each other. I have sent in an enhancement request to Canvas. I hope they receive enough requests to make this a top priority for future upgrades.

2 comments:

  1. Canvas learning management system serves as an optimistic approach aimed at making amendments in the scenario of future education. Best thing about this exclusive product is that it is of easily usable, mobile friendly and lets users to save their huge amount of time. Our qualified and experienced development team has changed and included additional features to the already existing Canvas layout to rename it as Customize Canvas LMS. If you have any queries email us at: info@cryptextechnologies.com

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  2. Thanks for sharing this article. Today, the CANVAS learning management system has not remained confined to a single application. Instead, it has created a drastic revolution in the modernized education sector and it is free to use. Canvas LMS or Learning Management Systems serves as an optimistic approach aimed at making amendments in the scenario of future education. Best thing about this exclusive product is that it is of easily usable, mobile friendly and lets users to save their huge amount of time. Our qualified and experienced developer’s team will add some extra features to the existing Canvas layout popularly known as customize canvas LMS.

    ReplyDelete