Reflection on Instructional Design in Canvas

Creating content in a learning management system can take time. As I work with teachers, the one barrier that so many feel they cannot overcome is the amount of time it takes to create the course. However, one must look at how the pedagogical transformation will enhance the learning environment for the students (Bowen & Lack, 2012). In Castleberry ISD, we are using Canvas LMS as we begin to transform the learning environment to a blended learning environment. However, this can look daunting to a teacher that has never reaped the benefits of a blended learning environment.

As I have begun to build my course in Canvas for my master’s course at UNT, I have seen that the task is overwhelming at first. So far, the instructional design and the organization in Canvas have both gone very smoothly. I have already organized my learning modules and have begun to enter the content. I really like the rubric builder where I can create interactive rubrics to go along with assignments, discussions, and quizzes. As I move forward in my development of the course, I will be embedding screen-cast videos and other web 2.0 applications into the content. The ability to embed this content will help students be able to work through the modules without having to leave the course to find the resources.

The challenging part of creating the course has been the amount of time it takes to create quality learning modules online. However, this is not something new to me. I know that when I am creating training modules for work, I can spend days working on a training that is going to be an hour and a half. What I have found in the past is that the more time and energy that I put into the development of the course, the smoother the training goes, and my students are much more successful in completing the course. All in all, I have not found the creation of the different applications in Canvas to be challenging. Canvas is very user friendly and if there are areas that I cannot figure out, the documentation they provide in their support section has been very beneficial.

I look forward to this next week when one of my classmates will be doing a peer review of what I have already created in my course. Having the peer reviewer look over my course this early in the development will certainly help as I continue to develop the course. I also look forward to reviewing the course for my peer. Not only do I look forward to providing them with constructive feedback, but I also hope to gain more insight into how Canvas can be implemented for online learning.

Reference

Bowen, W. G., & Lack, K. A. (2012). Current status of research on online learning in postsecondary education. Ithaka SandR. Downloaded April, 10, 2012.