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A key difference is that Instructure understands that most academics only begrudgingly use their LMS. For this reason, an educational LMS must be simple to use and easy to interoperate with third-party tools and services. Whereas the enormously successful boasts a powerful yet traditionally cumbersome interface, Canvas' UI employs tabs and contextual menus to excellent effect. Moodle's open-source, plug-in–based design will delight tech-savvy admins, but daunt LMS newcomers.

Canvas is the trusted, open-source learning management system (LMS) that's revolutionizing the way we educate. Take Canvas for a test drive with our free, two-week.

Instructure trumpets ease of use, while offering users free access to the API for building their own tools and self-hosting via a commercial open-source version. In fact, unlike both and Blackboard, Instructure has taken a cue from the corporate space and built a native cloud LMS, hosted by Amazon Web Services. Thanks to the Canvas Commons repository for sharing classes, modules, and assessments; the Canvas Network integrated platform for distributing face-to-face, blended, and online courses (Canvas Network); and the EduApps Center library of apps, Instructure offers a capable educational LMS and an attractive alternative to Blackboard. Getting Started For those acquainted with Blackboard, setting up Canvas is suspiciously straightforward. The new user interface is organized around three central components. These include the Dashboard, a high-level overview of top courses; Global Navigation, a static menu that provides access to key features; and the sidebar, which aggregates time-sensitive updates.

I particularly like the new Dashboard, which organizes courses using cards, each of which includes tabs for announcements, assignments, discussions, and files. Those tabs even bring to the foreground contextual notifications using number icons.

If you prefer a list view, you can also toggle to the Recent Activity stream. The left-aligned Global Navigation menu is accessible from anywhere, providing quick access to account settings, courses, groups, and the calendar and inbox. Educators and administrators ought to explore the Settings tab. It's not scary, I promise. Instructure allows admins and educators simple access to every kind of notification. For example, after I connected my Twitter account to Canvas, I set the system to notify me immediately whenever a student contributes to a discussion.

For other settings, I select daily and weekly email summaries, and for those messages to which I need to respond, I can reply directly from my Gmail account. Finally, the right-aligned sidebar features a Coming Up feed, a Review Grades link, and a To Do list. For educators, the To Do list might include assignments to grade. Configure Windows Recovery Environment For Bitlocker Dreamlinux 5 Download Iso there. on this page.

For students, it might be assignments to submit. The sidebar is probably my least favorite feature. Unlike the Courses sidebar, which I discuss below, it's not contextual, and there's little reason that information couldn't be folded into the primary Dashboard section. Moreover, when viewing the LMS on a mobile device, the sidebar ceases to be a sidebar; instead, it drops to the bottom of the page, where it effectively joins the Dashboard. Course Basics Teachers and students alike will spend most of their time in the Courses screen, which has been thoroughly overhauled over the past couple of years. Beside the Global Navigation menu, Instructure pins a Course navigation menu with links to different areas of the course, each of which can be customized. The Course navigation menu is tremendously useful, though hiding it—to save precious screen real estate—isn't as straightforward as hiding the Global Navigation menu, which you can simply click to close.

Instructure also provides a breadcrumb trail at the top of the screen, as well as a right-aligned contextual sidebar in much the same manner of the corporate LMS. This sidebar, which changes based on where you are in the course, streamlines and organizes the intricacies of course creation, which Canvas makes an inviting and open-ended process. Instructors begin with a Course Setup Checklist, with items such as importing content, adding students, choosing a course homepage, and adding calendar events. There's even something Canvas calls an Introduction Drawer that provides instructors with contextual help related to key features. What I like about this approach is that educators can design courses in a nonlinear fashion. I started by importing content, but soon struck out on my own.

Most functions fold around an HTML editor, to which educators may insert links to wikis, quizzes, announcements, and discussions. You can also upload files and images. Instructure allows admins to specify usage rights and published dates for those items. Instructure is also accommodating of existing content.