Instructure Canvas exploratory look
This is a rambling stream of experience encounter with Instructure Canvas basic by a six year veteran user of Schoology.
Canvas opens to a dashboard.
Modules can be set to have specific release dates.
My course welcome letter is posted as an announcement and thus does not appear in a module.
Back at the Course Introductory material module I will add a link to the external course calendar and syllabus.
The page name is not automatically pulled from the page title as in Schoology link boxes. But the capabilities are identical.
Course rubrics are easy to set up. I did not see a rubric import option, but my experience is that creating the import file in the correct format is often no easier than rebuilding rubrics from scratch. Of note is that rubrics do not have to be "rectangular" - each criterion can have a different number of ratings. The option for a zero rating is a nice touch, that is included by default.
To add outcomes to my rubric I will need to set up student learning outcomes. Student learning outcomes are the bread and butter of a modern LMS. Schoology has support for creating student learning outcomes in the Basic version, but reporting on mastery is restricted to the Institutional version. Canvas appears to have robust outcome capabilities even in the free version.
One surprise is that the student learning outcomes can have rich text descriptions. In Google Classroom there are no student learning outcomes. In Schoology the outcomes are text only and are referred to not as outcomes but as learning objectives. A matter of semantics, but words matter.
Whoa. This is the first thing I have seen that surprised me. I feel like I stepped up from a small cargo truck to a 16 wheeler with a crew cabin. Each outcome can have a preset criterion that would then be usable in rubrics. Mind blown. Schoology can put an outcome in a rubric, but the criterion happens in the rubric and is manually built in each rubric, not globally managed. And the options. Oh the options. Sweet.
So many decisions to be made. And who to make them? Assessment team? Curriculum? Individual instructors? Put my toy cars away, this has a serious student learning outcome drive train. The ability to custom set the decaying average split is nothing I have ever seen before. So much to think about. For now I will run with the defaults, which close to exactly mirror the settings I use back in Schoology.
Outcomes are set up quickly and easily.
Returning to my previously begun rubric I click on Find Outcome.
And import the outcome I want into my rubric. Nice. Same capability in Schoology, but nice to see this implemented in such an obvious and intuitive manner.
And the outcome arrives with the criterion that I specified back in the outcomes item. Note that I had the option to customize the ratings and chose not too. I know, for some who read this outcomes are binary. The beauty of Canvas is one can customize the ratings to fit one's needs.
One note and that is that like Schoology rubrics, the criterion live in the order in which they are entered, there does not seem to be a way to drag and drop them into other orders, so entry should be done in the desired order. When I flesh this rubric out with all 15 criterion I will need to delete that last one to make the order conform to the order I work with this rubric in.
With the rubric partially complete, I return to the assignments screen to set up the first laboratory report turn in.
The options are many and detailed. I already know that Canvas free does not support my chosen use of Google Drive Assignments - integrated Google suite via LTI. That comes only with institutional version. And that is potentially a showstopper for me and my use, certainly in a course such as statistics where a student and I interact via comments on functions in the Google Sheet. A static upload is not going to provide that option. But in physical science I can return to looking at static documents that have been uploaded and hope to find a meaningful way to get comments back to the student.
I can control the number of allowed attempts up front.
There are options here that are not available in a K12 focused package such as Schoology. Peer reviews. Anonymous grading. And there is an option to restrict availability from.. until.. which does not appear to be possible in Google Classroom. Schoology can mimic this by leaving an assignment unpublished and then setting a lock date on the assignment. One then publishes on the "available from" date and set the lock date as the "until." Both ways work, perhaps this is slightly more obvious. And this may leave the assignment visible but unavailable until the date, a feature found in Schoology test/quizzes/assessments.
I note some strange time differentials between the course and local time, I probably have not set my account time zone.
With the assignment details saved I am returned to the assignment screen. I note here that there is a publish option, which suggests this is unpublished at this time. Too, this is where I can attach a rubric.
I had expected to see a list of my rubrics, which is what Schoology might have provided. But I see that I have the option to create the rubric from right here. A phrase catches my eye: "Learning Mastery Gradebook" That is the screen that in Schoology is hidden from Basic and requires Institutional to access. That may be true here too as I have not stumbled into that screen yet.
But again, the richness of the options and choices I am given at each decision point is impressive. This vehicle came with all options.
Clicking on Find a Rubric pulls up access to my existing rubrics.
Clicking on the pencil at the upper right accesses to options that are simply new to my eyes. Call me a kid in a candy store.
Clicking on Use this rubric for assignment grading stunned me. In Schoology, once rubric is attached, that rubric points drive the assignment points 1:1. No options. And one could not have a rubric attached that did not generate a grade. But this is so powerful. I had not even thought about this capability. You could have a rubric that does not drive the grade. Brain freeze. So you could use the rubric to feed some other need - perhaps an assessment need that you did not want to impact the grade. That is so awesome. That is a powerful thought. There are so many things here, and yet so easily used and found. I feel like a country bumpkin in the city for the first time.
Yep. Country kid. First, this is wonderful. Canvas is guiding this newbie with comprehensible error messages. Second, this means that rubric point assignments can autoload into the grade points for an assignment, a curiously missing feature in Google Classroom where one has to manually enter the points, there is no option to flow the rubric points to the assignment score. Three, the error box includes a one click fix to my mistake. Beautiful. I have yet to have to read a single help file, watch a video, or ask a question. Slick.
Clicking on publish publishes the assignment.
I turn now to the people page and see if I can add a student to work on the assignment.
In the free version I am using I can add my own students to the course. Google Classroom was tougher to test drive as it required working through college IT admin.
I used the email method to send a login to a sandbox student. A To Do list can be seen at the bottom for the assignment. My modules are not all published yet.
Angelina ran into an issue with my modules not being published. I just discovered those green check boxes. There is very granular control of publishing or so it seems.
Angelina can see the rubric. I have not determined if the rubric can be hidden from the students at this time.
Once Submit Assignment is selected, a submission panel appears. Here a file can be uploaded. Or. Hmmm. This really is a stream of experience blog.
Authorize. And nothing happened. But I am used to that. Back in 2018 Schoology often needed a double authorization to forge the connection. So I repeated the Authorize Google Drive Access process.
And, boom. I am on the floor. I thought this could not be done from Canvas free. I thought I needed an LTI. I realize this might not have the full functionality of the LTI, but this is more than "cannot be done."
I submitted and, I kid you not, confetti went flying all over my screen. Yes, confetti. That is apparently submission confirmation.
My students are often asking if I received their assignment in Schoology. There really is not a completely obvious confirmation that their assignment arrived with me, and they do not trust the Internet. Bandwidth issues out here mean sometimes things do not upload. The above is on Angelina' screen, a nice confirmation not only that the assignment was submitted but when. That is a nice touch.
Back in the instructor's screen is a subtle clickable notification of a submission.
The marking screen, note that this is not a Google Drive Assignment LTI interface and may well be a PDF viewer. Canvas may have converted the file. Ignore the .docx extension, that is in the Google Docs file name, I did not change the name on conversion.
The divider is draggable. The rubric is clickable to enter score values. Just like Schoology.
At the end of the rubric is a save option.
The points from the rubric flowed into the score box.
For the student to see the comments in the paper, they have to click on View Feedback.
And then they can see their paper with the comment made. And this is where I suspect things will bog down for me. The original file downloads as a 6.8 megabyte file in a docx format, not a PDF, so I may be wrong about there being a PDF conversion. But this is not a Google Doc with its progressive loading capability. And this was problematic in Schoology in the PDF viewer and may be problematic here for students attempting to upload. So there is undoubtedly via the LTI a way to use Google Docs from within Canvas in the way that is possible in Schoology, but that tool is apparently reserved to institutional users. These documents are slow to load even on my connection, and may be nigh on impossible on a weaker village based connection. Experience has taught me that Google Docs does load on low bandwidth connections, hence my broad use of it. So this something to think about, a real ding for my potential use of the package and the only real negative I have seen thus far.
The upside is that students can at least compose in Google Docs and cross load from there directly to Canvas, which will have its upload issues but perhaps not as severe. Comments may have to flow back through the comment system rather than annotations on the original document, an approach I used in Schoology Basic.
Quizzes get a title and a rich text description. Access to questions is from the tab on this screen.
While in Schoology there is only "one" type of quiz/test, Canvas again is loaded to the gills with options. Practice quizzes and surveys - which are critical to affective domain assessments - are available. In Schoology one can generate a survey, but only as a hack of a quiz. One sets the quiz to be ungraded. Schoology has a global option to show correct answers, if that is enabled and one wishes to reuse a test in a future term, then one has to manually return to the prior test and disable the show answers option. Canvas steps up the game by having the option to limit the revealing of answers to a specific time frame. Nice touch.
Quiz restrictions access code appears to be equivalent to requiring students to enter a password to start a quiz or test. The filter IP addresses is a capability wholly new to me and I have not seen that in either Google Classroom nor Schoology. Again, Canvas has a broad and powerful range of options and capabilities.
On my way to trying to set up a grading category for my quiz I stumbled into another set of options not available in Schoology nor Google Classroom: automatic late policy rules that can be configured in the grade book.
For the first time I went and looked for the manual. I found that grade categories are groups in Canvas and are set up from the Assignments screen. And that was the first hit in Google, a University of Michigan support page. The broad use of Canvas means there is a lot of support material out there.
So I add my Groups.
Once I added Groups from the +Group I realized that lab one is in the wrong group. Wouldn't it be cool if I could just drag and drop lab one into the proper group? Ah, cannot be that simple. I will have to go in and change a setting, move the assignment. But what happens if I do try to drag and drop...
Oh! Darned if that did not work! Impressed I am.
With that background work done, I am now turning to generating questions for the quiz.
There are all of the question types I get in Schoology test/quiz material item. True, some of the fancier assessment tool questions do not appear to be available here - and that would be the first time Schoology has more options. That said, the assessment material item in Schoology is Institutional only, and I am using Canvas free. Whether there are more options in Canvas Institutional is simply unknown to me.
Question set up.
The multiple choice set up is familiar enough, but the colored boxes are new to my eyes. Let me click on one.
No. No way. Tickle me to death with an elephant feather. You have got to be kidding me. I have always wanted to have the capability to provide feedback post quiz to a student on a wrong answer. Oh! I already have so many ideas for this capability. I need this yesterday. Decades of teaching and I know the common errors. I include coverage of them in my explanations, but they are common because they are commonly made. Omitting parentheses. Using one minus a confidence level. If I could provide feedback at the end of a quiz or test, that would be the cat's derriere in pajamas. Again, Canvas shows me things I can do now and then shows me things I had not dreamt existed. Why would I want to be anywhere else? And the comment is rich text! Automatic! There is an option in Schoology tests to manually enter a text only comment, but not a rich text automated comment. How much does this cost, I want one in my car port now.
For my second question I want the students to identify a cloud type from an image.
Pick a folder and then Upload File.
Nice to see a thumbnail in that dialog box. I am reminded of the material design emptiness of Google Classroom.
Short answer offers multiple correct options as it should.
The problem with this question is that the answer is 2.02269092 on this computer. There are sometimes differences in the answer when calculated on more limited hardware such as in a mobile phone app. And students have a habit of rounding to different digits. Fill in the blank is problematic. In Schoology I wind up entering at least ten answers. Sure, I tell the students to round to two decimal places. But when they do not, but the answer is correct, then what?
Canvas has my back. Now, to be fair, the newer assessments material item in Schoology Institutional does include some slick handling of math solutions. But not the free version. And I am working in Canvas free here.
There are really three options here. Not that one would use all three in one question. But the range option gives me what I need. Interesting side note: I could not paste the value from Google Sheets into the answer box, I had to type the value into the box. That was interesting. Subsequent tests suggest that one cannot copy and paste into these solution fields.
I can add an item from here.
Angelina now sees the quiz in the module Unit 01.
And can take the quiz.
And this for question three after submission. And if need be, I could have chosen other options including not showing the correct answers.
The grade book has instantiated with the existence of grades.
Clicking in a cell yields a right arrow which opens up...
... a place where an assignment can be marked late (not available in Schoology), missing, or excused. There is no "incomplete" which in Schoology is the same as not marking the assignment at all. Comments can be made on the grade, these will be visible to the student. My response comment is below the scroll.
There are so many hidden gems. Like.
Yes, a gradebook history. Bad things happening are rare. But sadly they do happen in all human endeavors. Schoology does not appear to have grade book forensics capabilities.
Canvas does. What was done by whom and when. Again, wow. I am blown away over and over again. The more I explore the more I understand that this is what an industrial strength LMS looks like. On Monday morning I go back to my Schoology family car and my quiet little life, but tonight I have a muscle car to prowl the streets with. The grader "not available" is because the quiz grades itself.
Files is a course assets storage area enabling reuse of course assets, similar in some sense to Resources in Schoology.
Conferences are available, apparently a similar functionality to that of the same name in Schoology.
There is a fully featured Discussions capability in Canvas, above are some of the options available in discussions. Discussions can be pinned or not.
I remembered this time to click on the publish button on the right to publish the link. This is faster and easier to work with than in Schoology where publish is a two step process off of a gear menu on the right side of an item. A small difference to be sure.
With laboratory reports, online quizzes, and support for external links, the core deliverables in physical science online, Canvas is clearly capable of supporting the course.
This blog is a real time fire hose stream of consciousness and follows a dive into Google Classroom covered in another article. At issue is whether to run a Google Classroom and Canvas evaluation head to head next term or just run one. Schoology was purchased in 2019 by PowerSchool and shifted to a K12 focus. These twin evaluations are intended to inform the college on directions to take in the event that Schoology opts to end all support for existing institutions of higher education, or makes a move to integrate Schoology into PowerSchool so deeply that an institution has to adopt PowerSchool to use Schoology.
After a run to clear my own head of cobwebs I realized the nub of the problem with Google Classroom: the absence of support for student learning outcomes means that the package cannot support fulfillment of the accrediting commission standard 2A on assessment. Without the ability to measure course level student learning outcomes a package is not only a non-starter, but if used in a subchange request, could be rejected outright. Google Classroom remains a document distribution system with a gradebook glued on, not a learning management system. And unable to meet accreditation standards. This may change in the future and the package would deserve a second look at that time. At present Canvas is the only option.
That Google Classroom is essentially targeting 3-12 is supported by some site reviews. Google Classroom is not yet college ready.
The issue of the free version of Canvas not having Google Drive Assignment integration is personally problematic, but not necessarily the showstopper that it appeared to be. Google Docs can be accessed and uploaded, just not interacted with natively. There are issues of bandwidth to be resolved, but the course is a hybrid course with labs on campus. This would permit students to, if nothing else, upload on lab days. This is a solvable issue.
The free version will easily support my small 20 student class without the need for significant IT support.
While there is so much more to Canvas, and more for me to learn, I am already able to deliver my core materials with what I have learned in past nine or so hours. This was a faster and cleaner process than the day and half I spent trying to Google Classroom to do the same.
There remain some loose ends to sort out, the lead one being whether Angelina can interact with the Canvas from her mobile device using the Chrome browser - the app is institutional use only. That she can compose in Google Docs is a real plus in this regard. Some students have only a mobile device.
I am reminded that there is always more to learn. I wondered if Canvas would report quiz statistics.
Log in analytics?
Not only log in analytics, but another on my wish list that I did not know I had: how to send a message to all students based on a specific course criteria. That is something that can be done? I thought that was a manual hack process of figuring out who meets the criteria and then manually assembling a message to them.
There are the things I know I need. Canvas has those. There are the things I do not know I need that I need. Canvas has those too. I suspect that there are also things I do not know I need that I do not need. And Canvas has those too. Stunning.
Comments
Post a Comment