The Canvas Network is a MOOC provider that offers a variety of courses from community colleges. This distinguishes it from Coursera and edX, which primarily offer courses from universities like Stanford and Harvard.
The Canvas platform is design to allow instructors, administrators and students to create, deliver, engage and collaborate in an open, online learning environment. This achieved through the following features:
Course creation
Canvas Network is an online platform that offers free, open professional development courses to support K-12 and Higher Ed educators. The courses taught by teachers from around the world and focus on ways to help educators thrive in their classrooms and their careers.
Canvas is an LMS (learning management system) that allows instructors to create and deliver their course content. It also provides a number of learning analytics tools to assess student achievement.
Using Canvas is simple and intuitive. The system can use by anyone in an organization who has access to a web browser and a computer. Instructors can set up course sites that are accessible from anywhere in the world.
Students can invite to join the course by the instructor or can enroll themselves on their own. Once enrolled, they will receive an email from Canvas that contains instructions on how to log in and navigate the site.
If a student cannot log in to the course, they will send a message to their student email account indicating that they need to re-register with Canvas. The email will also include a link to reset their password.
Once a student has logged in, they can begin participating in the course by navigating to their course site and clicking the “Join This Course” button. They will be able to see the list of assignments, view their grades, and respond to discussions.
They will have to enter a username and password for their student account and select a time zone. Also, they will prompt to accept the Canvas Acceptable Use Policy and agree to abide by the institution’s e-mail policies.
The course can then publish for viewing by all registered students of the institution. In addition, students will be able to access their course materials outside of Canvas as well.
Instructure’s MOOC (massive open online course) platform, Canvas Network, is a good option for colleges and universities looking for a low-cost, easy-to-use, and secure learning management system. However, the company faces a number of challenges to succeed in the MOOC market. One of the biggest hurdles is getting college presidents’ attention. This is because most presidents are familiar with Coursera, edX, and Udacity.
Course delivery
Courses delivered through the Canvas Network built on the same learning management system (LMS) used by millions of learners worldwide. This gives instructors and students the freedom to innovate, experiment, and evolve online learning based on what works best for them and their students.
Instructors can use Canvas for a variety of teaching and learning activities, including assigning assignments, hosting discussions, creating modules, and using quizzes to assess student understanding of course materials. The platform also allows them to integrate state and institutional learning outcomes into rubrics for evaluation.
Some of the most popular courses on the Canvas Network include those focused on STEM education, a wide range of marketing and technology courses, and courses for fans of the video game Minecraft. They also feature cross-disciplinary courses aimed at preparing students for the challenges of college life.
The Canvas Network is a free online learning network that aims to make it easier for teachers, institutions and students to create and share open courses. It hosted by Instructure, an American company that develops and sells educational software products.
Canvas is an open source LMS that is design for use on a range of devices and platforms, including web browsers, desktop computers, mobile phones, and tablets. It offers a rich set of features that are easy to navigate, and is well-suited for both teaching and learning.
As a result, Canvas widely use in K-12 classrooms and higher education. Its openness has led to a thriving community of educators who have created courses and resources for its users.
In addition to its wide availability, Canvas is highly secure and reliable, with a 99.9% uptime guarantee and SLAs that are usually within an hour of the severity of the issue. Its user interface is simple and intuitive for both instructors and students, with many options to adapt the interface to suit specific needs and goals.
Aside from its traditional features, Canvas also has tools that specifically designed to support project-based learning (PBL). These features encourage collaboration, help build critical thinking skills, and align with Common Core standards.
Student engagement
Students often experience feelings of isolation in online courses, and many feel that they lack the support needed to succeed. By applying several strategies, instructors can increase student engagement in their online course by creating socially integrated learning environments that promote collaboration, expression, and creativity.
First, instructors should create a community within their course that focuses on building relationships and supporting one another. This helps students to feel connected with their peers and to understand why they are learning. It also encourages them to communicate with their instructor and advisor more frequently.
Second, instructors can provide opportunities for students to give feedback on each other’s work. Whether it is through a peer review assignment or a collaborative project, this allows students to practice giving and receiving feedback. Evaluating others’ work builds student-to-student interaction and strengthens community.
Third, instructors can provide customized interactions based on student grade ranges and other assignment metrics. For example, they may supply additional study resources or pointers to previously covered content only to those scoring less than 70% on a recent exam.
Fourth, instructors can use Canvas’s New Analytics to better assess student engagement in their course. Using this information to identify students who are not engaging with course content can help instructors take action before students drop the class.
Fifth, it can also help instructors to better engage with students who are failing a course. This can done by messaging them or noting their absences in MyPLAN, the UNL system connecting students with their advisors and instructors.
Finally, instructors can enhance student engagement by creating an environment that provides an abundance of choice. Autonomy is a desire that all humans share, and students who given choices are more likely to perform and learn well.
However, the term student engagement is a complex and confusing concept, with different meanings across different research disciplines and academic contexts (Trowler 2010; Healey et al. 2014). As a result, it is difficult to identify the degree of student engagement at a particular moment in time.
Instructor support
The Canvas Network offers instructor-focused courses on how to use Canvas effectively and how to design Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs). These courses are free and accessible to educators worldwide.
Canvas has tools that help instructors teach students, engage them in discussions and manage assignments. It also makes it easy to track student progress and communicate with them in real-time.
In addition, Canvas has a plagiarism detection tool called Turnitin that checks submitted documents for plagiarism. This feature helps instructors ensure that students are able to write original content, which is critical for their success in college.
Other tools include a video studio that allows instructors to record and upload videos without requiring any prior video production knowledge. The UNL One Button Studio features a simplified video recording setup, allowing instructors to create professional-looking videos in just a few clicks.
Another tool is the Canvas Network, a platform that provides teachers with resources and community to support their teaching practice. It gives them a way to build new open online courses, communities and collections.
Canvas is use by many universities, colleges and schools across Canada. It is an open learning management system (LMS) that provides a variety of tools to help teachers deliver online course material.
It is an eco-friendly and cost-effective alternative to paper-based methods of distributing instructional materials, storing course records and communicating with students. In addition, it also allows courses to reuse easily, reducing the number of copies needed.
Moreover, instructors can share files with students and keep them in a central location. This reduces the amount of paper used, as well as the time required to process the materials and distribute them to students.
The Canvas Network also provides a range of learning content, including tutorials and videos. For example, the “Minecraft for Educators” MOOC taught by Joel Mills from the University of Hull and is a great resource for educators who are interested in teaching using Minecraft.
The Canvas Network also hosts a series of online courses that address issues facing girls in science, technology and engineering. The courses aim to increase girls’ interest in STEM subjects, and provide educators with strategies for incorporating STEM into their curriculum.
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