The Canvas Guys (Ben and Chris) got to go to Florida last weekend and participate in the ITC elearning conference. It was a lot of fun. We presented on using Instructure Canvas to measure learning outcomes. Our presentation went well and we learned a lot from some of the sessions we attended. I particularly enjoyed the keynote by Dr. David Wiley. If you are not familiar with his work, you should look him up and get to know him.
There were two parts to our presentation. Chris presented on the reasoning behind learning outcomes and I presented on how to use Canvas to collect meaningful data.
I've decided to post the Prezi that I used for this. It might not make a lot of sense without my explanation, but maybe it will be useful to somebody. It starts by showing what we use to do in ANGEL and then how simple it is to do in Canvas. Again, no promise that this will make sense, but here it is anyway.
Thursday, February 24, 2011
Monday, February 7, 2011
7 Cheers and 7 Critiques
I just read an interesting blog post by Joshua Kim at Inside Higher Ed: Instructure's Canvas LMS: 7 Cheers & 7 Critiques.
Mr Kim has some interesting points, although I think there were several instances where his "cheers" and "critiques" were backward or just said without enough experience to be able to make some of the statements that were made.
An example of this is his cheer #2 (User Interface) and critique #2 (Feature Set). I have found the user interface to be useful and sufficient, but this is an area where I can see Instructure still improving upon. I've worked with faculty who say there are still too many clicks to get to where they need to grade. The home screen needs to have more direct links to parts of their course. It also needs to be more user-customizable. I have had more than one learner come up to me and ask if they can change the "style" of the site. I'm sure in time these features will become a part of Canvas, but for now I'd put it in the critique side.
Critique #2 mentions the feature set which seems unfounded to me. True, Canvas doesn't have as many features as the LMS giants (thank goodness!), which is by design. This is actually a good thing. This is part of their plan to be disruptive in this market. As an instructional designer, and an instructor I welcome the lack of certain features and the appearance of new ones. This provides me with an opportunity to re-think my course and design it with new features. Of course all the basic features are there, which is what 95% (I admit that is a guess) of faculty use anyway.
Critique 3- Disruption: Mr. Kim worries "that the approach is insufficiently disruptive". I'm not too sure, how much he has worked in higher education and facilitated a change from one LMS to another. In my employment I would say that any transition to a new LMS is very disruptive and the uniqueness of Canvas certainly puts it at the top of the list. Keep in mind that my school (Westminster) is still an ANGEL campus and it will take years to finalize a change to a different LMS. By looking at the available LMS's out there I don't think there is another product as "disruptive" as Canvas.
Critique 7- Leadership. Mr. Kim writes "I wonder if Coates has enough people around him who will disagree with his ideas and plans?" I'm not sure that Kim should have broached this subject this unless he has spent sufficient time with the leadership team at Instructure. I don't know that I can claim to be the most knowledgeable about there team, but I've spent a lot of time talking business with them and also engaging in convivial conversation. I can say without a doubt in my mind that he has some fantastic people around him. The two co-founders in particular care deeply about the product and will certainly stand up for what is best for the LMS. The business development team (Heather Kane specifically) likewise is strong and is not afraid to give a no when a no is required.
There are certainly more issues I could agree and disagree with, and I applaud Kim for taking a critical look at this tool, but those who read it should read it with a bit of caution because those critiques and cheers look much different after using it for a year.
Mr Kim has some interesting points, although I think there were several instances where his "cheers" and "critiques" were backward or just said without enough experience to be able to make some of the statements that were made. An example of this is his cheer #2 (User Interface) and critique #2 (Feature Set). I have found the user interface to be useful and sufficient, but this is an area where I can see Instructure still improving upon. I've worked with faculty who say there are still too many clicks to get to where they need to grade. The home screen needs to have more direct links to parts of their course. It also needs to be more user-customizable. I have had more than one learner come up to me and ask if they can change the "style" of the site. I'm sure in time these features will become a part of Canvas, but for now I'd put it in the critique side.Critique #2 mentions the feature set which seems unfounded to me. True, Canvas doesn't have as many features as the LMS giants (thank goodness!), which is by design. This is actually a good thing. This is part of their plan to be disruptive in this market. As an instructional designer, and an instructor I welcome the lack of certain features and the appearance of new ones. This provides me with an opportunity to re-think my course and design it with new features. Of course all the basic features are there, which is what 95% (I admit that is a guess) of faculty use anyway.
Critique 3- Disruption: Mr. Kim worries "that the approach is insufficiently disruptive". I'm not too sure, how much he has worked in higher education and facilitated a change from one LMS to another. In my employment I would say that any transition to a new LMS is very disruptive and the uniqueness of Canvas certainly puts it at the top of the list. Keep in mind that my school (Westminster) is still an ANGEL campus and it will take years to finalize a change to a different LMS. By looking at the available LMS's out there I don't think there is another product as "disruptive" as Canvas.
Critique 7- Leadership. Mr. Kim writes "I wonder if Coates has enough people around him who will disagree with his ideas and plans?" I'm not sure that Kim should have broached this subject this unless he has spent sufficient time with the leadership team at Instructure. I don't know that I can claim to be the most knowledgeable about there team, but I've spent a lot of time talking business with them and also engaging in convivial conversation. I can say without a doubt in my mind that he has some fantastic people around him. The two co-founders in particular care deeply about the product and will certainly stand up for what is best for the LMS. The business development team (Heather Kane specifically) likewise is strong and is not afraid to give a no when a no is required.
There are certainly more issues I could agree and disagree with, and I applaud Kim for taking a critical look at this tool, but those who read it should read it with a bit of caution because those critiques and cheers look much different after using it for a year.
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
Open Source Day
Today is the be
ginning of something big for Instructure. They have announced that they are going to go open-source. Along with that their website and logo have been upgraded. I am particularly excited to see they have a blog. I hope they update it on a regular basis.
So, there are a lot of things to comment on, but I'll try to keep it simple and to the point. The truth is I don't know how this "open source" is going to change the game. I think that it will bring about a change, although it will be gradual.
"The Journal" has an article about it. It is a great article explaining a lot about the company. However, I have to say there is one line that had me laughing: On the second page in the third paragraph it says "Their No. 1 answer was Blackboard, which is what Brigham Young uses." Ha ha ha, I'm pretty sure that Brigham Young despite his vast amount of posterity is not using blackboard.
Feel free to chime in and let us know what you think the result of the open-source announcement will be. Here is what I think will happen:
ginning of something big for Instructure. They have announced that they are going to go open-source. Along with that their website and logo have been upgraded. I am particularly excited to see they have a blog. I hope they update it on a regular basis.So, there are a lot of things to comment on, but I'll try to keep it simple and to the point. The truth is I don't know how this "open source" is going to change the game. I think that it will bring about a change, although it will be gradual.
"The Journal" has an article about it. It is a great article explaining a lot about the company. However, I have to say there is one line that had me laughing: On the second page in the third paragraph it says "Their No. 1 answer was Blackboard, which is what Brigham Young uses." Ha ha ha, I'm pretty sure that Brigham Young despite his vast amount of posterity is not using blackboard.
Feel free to chime in and let us know what you think the result of the open-source announcement will be. Here is what I think will happen:
- Instructure will get more national attention as an alternative to Moodle.
- Desire2Learn will spend a bit more time with their attorneys.
- The Blackboard CEO is going to check their pocket books to see if they have enough money to put an end to this Canvas-movement. Blackboard will continue to lose clients to Instructure.
- Canvas is going to need to increase support staff, there are going to be a lot of people trying to check out the "free" version and realizing they need a bit of help. IMPORTANT NOTE: open-source does NOT mean FREE.
I'm excited to see how this will change the LMS environment. Like their add says "Change is good."
Youtube Commercial- Change is good
This morning an inside source has sent me a link to the Canvas commercial. It is pretty good, and I enjoyed recognizing some of the people in it.
Thursday, January 27, 2011
UEN Training- Best Practices
I've been asked to share about 15 minutes worth of Canvas "Best Practices" at a UEN Canvas Training session today at the University of Utah. I created a short presentation in Prezi to share some of my ideas. I doubt I'll get through the entire presentation, so I thought I'd share it here. Enjoy!
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
Instructure and Development
I was asked if I could speak with a potential client of Instructure today about the topic of their ability to deliver on development items and to meet deadlines.
So, I thought I'd go ahead and write up my comments here on the subject so that future Instructure investigators can hear about my experience.
The story starts about a year ago when we realized that ANGEL wasn't providing us the data that we needed. We began investigating various LMS options and concluded that Instructure would be the best based off of the development customizations that they agreed to do. In particular we wanted the ability to track student competency across multiple courses and to be able collect documentation about faculty contact sessions so that we could prove satisfactory academic progress reports for financial aid.
We had a meeting with several of the developers and their Director of Business Development (Heather Kane). Because of our unique requests for specific reports we went through and listed all the modifications that we needed. Then they went through the list and determined which are features they should add to Canvas for all their clients and then the ones that were specific for us. They came back with this list and a price quote which I thought was very fair. We agreed on specifics and delivery dates.
During the development process we didn't hear a lot from them other than the occasional "we just finished this part, could you test it out". However, before final delivery they had completed all the required tasks and we were allowed some time to try it out and give feedback on what they did so they could get it correct within the deadline.
Overall the development process went about as well as I could have hoped for. Like all new projects there have been a few minor tweaks to what they did for us as we began implementing it, but they have been very good to work with.
I don't want to embarrass anybody (or leave anybody out), but some of their developers were particularly good to work with. I really enjoyed working with Bracken Mosbacker and Zach Wiley. They were quick to deliver what we needed and wanted to get us exactly what we asked for.
So, I thought I'd go ahead and write up my comments here on the subject so that future Instructure investigators can hear about my experience.
The story starts about a year ago when we realized that ANGEL wasn't providing us the data that we needed. We began investigating various LMS options and concluded that Instructure would be the best based off of the development customizations that they agreed to do. In particular we wanted the ability to track student competency across multiple courses and to be able collect documentation about faculty contact sessions so that we could prove satisfactory academic progress reports for financial aid.
We had a meeting with several of the developers and their Director of Business Development (Heather Kane). Because of our unique requests for specific reports we went through and listed all the modifications that we needed. Then they went through the list and determined which are features they should add to Canvas for all their clients and then the ones that were specific for us. They came back with this list and a price quote which I thought was very fair. We agreed on specifics and delivery dates.
During the development process we didn't hear a lot from them other than the occasional "we just finished this part, could you test it out". However, before final delivery they had completed all the required tasks and we were allowed some time to try it out and give feedback on what they did so they could get it correct within the deadline.
Overall the development process went about as well as I could have hoped for. Like all new projects there have been a few minor tweaks to what they did for us as we began implementing it, but they have been very good to work with.
I don't want to embarrass anybody (or leave anybody out), but some of their developers were particularly good to work with. I really enjoyed working with Bracken Mosbacker and Zach Wiley. They were quick to deliver what we needed and wanted to get us exactly what we asked for.
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
Reaction to D2L vs UEN lawsuit article
So, I just read this article from the SL Trib: UEN Sued Over Contract Award.
For those to lazy to read the article, it basically says that Desire2Learn (D2L) thinks that Instructure couldn't possibly get the award because they are too small and there are alegations that an Instructure employee who use to work for UEN might have had influence over the decision.
This is a load of crap. Sorry for being crude, but seriously, I HATE it when companies are bad losers.
When Westminster College agreed to use Canvas as our LMS for the Project-Based programs, the competing company could not believe that they lost to Instructure. They went straight to the President of the College and complained (seriously!?!). This company brought up Instructure being too young, or not experienced enough were brought up, but fortunately the decision was made with plenty of input and the issue was quickly put to rest.
When new companies start, they have to get their first big contract somewhere, perhaps D2L needs to remember when they landed their first big contract. Everybody has to start somewhere. To me, this sounds like Desire2Learn is just cranky because they are still upset about the legal issues they had with Blackboard. Perhaps the attourney is on retainer, so they were thinking "Hey, since we are paying for this anyway, lets sue UEN! Money! Money! Money!"
I do not represent Westminster or any other group (including Instructure) when I say this, but I think Instructure is on the right path! After talking with them and seeing what their product can do it is hard to say no to them. They have the vision right, and are doing things right. Sure, they have some room to grow, but they are way ahead of everybody else because they aren't using crappy tech from the 90's and they aren't stuck with huge institutions who wont allow them to change anything.
Ok, one more conspiracy theory then I'll try to get off my soap box. D2L prides themselves as the anti-Blackboard. They have probably gotten a lot of business because schools right now don't like Blackboard (for too many reasons to bring up now). I call this the "anything is better than Blackboard" erra of the LMS. So, with D2L enjoying the success of being #2 (pun-intended) they don't want anybody else moving in on their territory. Small start-ups like Instructure are a direct threat to them. So, they are going to do the same basic strategy that Blackboard did to them for years; tie them up in expensive legal battles hoping that the cost of the legal fees alone will be enough to crush the competition.
Sorry D2L, you are barking up the wrong tree. Your lawsuit is going to just bring more attention to Instructure. This might be the best thing to happen to Instructure! The one thing Instructure needs is more publicity- and this just might be the biggest opportunity they get.
For those to lazy to read the article, it basically says that Desire2Learn (D2L) thinks that Instructure couldn't possibly get the award because they are too small and there are alegations that an Instructure employee who use to work for UEN might have had influence over the decision.
This is a load of crap. Sorry for being crude, but seriously, I HATE it when companies are bad losers.
When Westminster College agreed to use Canvas as our LMS for the Project-Based programs, the competing company could not believe that they lost to Instructure. They went straight to the President of the College and complained (seriously!?!). This company brought up Instructure being too young, or not experienced enough were brought up, but fortunately the decision was made with plenty of input and the issue was quickly put to rest.
When new companies start, they have to get their first big contract somewhere, perhaps D2L needs to remember when they landed their first big contract. Everybody has to start somewhere. To me, this sounds like Desire2Learn is just cranky because they are still upset about the legal issues they had with Blackboard. Perhaps the attourney is on retainer, so they were thinking "Hey, since we are paying for this anyway, lets sue UEN! Money! Money! Money!"
I do not represent Westminster or any other group (including Instructure) when I say this, but I think Instructure is on the right path! After talking with them and seeing what their product can do it is hard to say no to them. They have the vision right, and are doing things right. Sure, they have some room to grow, but they are way ahead of everybody else because they aren't using crappy tech from the 90's and they aren't stuck with huge institutions who wont allow them to change anything.
Ok, one more conspiracy theory then I'll try to get off my soap box. D2L prides themselves as the anti-Blackboard. They have probably gotten a lot of business because schools right now don't like Blackboard (for too many reasons to bring up now). I call this the "anything is better than Blackboard" erra of the LMS. So, with D2L enjoying the success of being #2 (pun-intended) they don't want anybody else moving in on their territory. Small start-ups like Instructure are a direct threat to them. So, they are going to do the same basic strategy that Blackboard did to them for years; tie them up in expensive legal battles hoping that the cost of the legal fees alone will be enough to crush the competition.
Sorry D2L, you are barking up the wrong tree. Your lawsuit is going to just bring more attention to Instructure. This might be the best thing to happen to Instructure! The one thing Instructure needs is more publicity- and this just might be the biggest opportunity they get.
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