Author: mcfanna

Navigating through Canvas App

Once the app is downloaded on to the smartphone, you will need to select the institute you attend by clicking “Find my school,” then proceed to type in the name of your school.

The next page that appears should be your log in page for you online campus or Ecampus.

One you log in with your credentials you will be lead to the home page.

This page is called the “Dashboard,” this is where you will be able to navigate through out the app. On the left top corner there are 3 bars, once you click on that it will take give you several options to click on and use.

        

• Files: Contains all the files you have uploaded to canvas, it could be anything from documents to pictures.

• Bookmarks: Saved links or pages that you would like to access quickly
• Show Grades: Is as simple as is you want your grade to be posted on the dashboard
• Change user: If someone else needs to log on from that device
• Log out: If you need to exit the app without leaving yourself logged in

On the top right is a gear symbol, this is the settings control. It contains a list of different settings you can use to customize the app

      

• Profile Settings: Where you can change you photo
• Account Preferences: Language and Calendar settings
• Push Notifications: you can change what you are updated on during the course of your term
• About: Domain, Login ID, Email
• Legal: Legalities to app
• Help: Where you get your questions answered

(Push Notification screen)

Once you return to the Dashboard, it has a list of your classes when you select one of those it will take you to the course and it will be set up differently based on each professor.

At the bottom of the Dashboard there is a Dashboard tab so you can return to this screen once navigating to others. There are also 4 other tabs: Calendar, To Do, Notifications, and Inbox.  (bottom of the above photo).

• Calendar: has all due dates for assignments, quizzes and discussions.

• To Do: items you still have to do, in a list format

• Notifications: Alerts you receive based on your settings

• Inbox: a forum where you can send and receive messages, like an email

 

 

Why Canvas Needs To Reflect A Social Medium

In today’s world, it’s hard to find someone who does not use at least one form of social media. Whether it be Facebook, Twitter or one of the other popular social media apps, it feels as if everyone you meet is always connected. This is a fact that universities need to exploit through their smartphone applications. In particular, Oregon State University (and its students) would greatly benefit from a Canvas app designed to resemble a social medium. In doing so, OSU and Canvas would increase the app’s usage rate from students, which would hopefully be reflected in their academic performance. In addition, a Canvas redesign would help OSU’s E-Campus students, who could benefit from an improved interaction with the app.

Essentially, Canvas’ smartphone app needs to be as addicting as a social media application so that students will want to use it constantly. In an ideal scenario, students should want to use the Canvas app just as much as they want to use Facebook, Twitter, etc., constantly opening the app throughout the day to check their assignments, announcements and grades, much like they would check for memes or tags on other platforms. If this is ever the case, it can be assured that student academic performance would improve, as the redesigned Canvas app would encourage interaction and help students stay on top of their coursework, especially those who rely heavily on online tools like Canvas.

Evaluating Canvas as a Proper LMS tool

Students and professors at Oregon State University use Canvas everyday to keep everyone informed, grade and post assignments, and turn in homework. It eliminates the need for professors to have individual ways of organizing their classes, and does a good job and unifying the college workload. The importance of Canvas increases exponentially to e-campus students. Everything about their classes exist entirely on Canvas for most classes. Nadire Cavus, author of “Assessing the Success Rate of Students Using a Learning Management System Together with a Collaborative Tool in Web-Based Teaching of Programming Languages.” at the Journal of Educational Computing Research writes in their study compares student’s success to LMS (learning management system) tools, like Canvas, and online-based teaching. The results of the study were that there was a higher success rate when online students used a program like Canvas.

However, does Canvas perform the best it can for the students and teachers? According to Kritz Shonfield, a writer for European Journal of Open, Distance and E-Learning, Distance and E-Learning academic journal compared the efficacy of online classes with a LMS tool, like Canvas, and a in-person, face to face class style. The results indicated that the online class that has good teaching and a properly managed and organized LMS tool can foster learning. Canvas needs to become more organized in order to be an effective online learning tool. As with any study tool, organization is key. A streamlined, effective way to find the information needed is important for students both on and off campus.

Canvas’ organization revolves around the idea of modules, a way to group assignments, readings, etc. into groups commonly organized by time. A good example of module organization is WR214. Each week is listed out with clear expectations on what to do, contains an announcement from the professor, along with a wrap-up announcement to make sure each student gets everything they need to do gets done. This has improved my overall sense of the class and definitely has impacted my grade and feel for the class in a negative way.  On the other hand, a poor example would be the PH21X series. Its Canvas page is organized very poorly. Some modules are organized by lecture time, while some are for the class as a whole. My experience with this series was a struggle to learn how to access the information at the beginning and was difficult to master. Salim Said Al-Kindi is a writer for the International Journal of Knowledge Content Development & Technology. He tracked online learning with mobile devices and saw that LMS tools lacked behind Wikipedia, Facebook, and Youtube to learn the information. This presents a point in which we can improve upon Canvas. A place where information from the class can be accessed just as quickly as looking it up on Wikipedia. This is important to accomplish because this will ensure the correctness of the information. This will also improve the quality of Canvas’ organization. Having the ability to access information quickly will allow professors to design their modules in a better way.

Another addition to make Canvas better would be personalization to existing tools implemented in Canvas. Ahmad Qasim AlHamad in their article, “Identifying Students’ Trends toward Personalizing Learning Management System (LMS) at Zarqa University (Extended).” explores the idea of personalizing LMS tools to better education in an online setting. Personalization includes seeing tools the students want to see and hiding the tools students do not want to see. Having systems where users can pick and choose would help all kinds of learners. For example, visual learners would opt to see lecture slides and other similar material. Changing canvas in this way would make it a more unique experience for its users.