@linsChaho Its been a wild year but having a rad platform to connect with students is essential. I am a Google fanatic but when it comes to online classroom experience I prefer Canvas for a couple reasons. Hope this helps you in your journey.
1) Home page - when you click on a course file in Canvas, which is very similar to Google classroom, it will load the homepage which feels like a website. Teachers can put images, graphics, videos, links directly on that first page help kids get to where they need to go. It’s not a fee driven where kids have to scroll for days to find what they need. And yes I know you can pin things to the top but that list gets very long quickly. This is basically the front door to your classroom so each teacher gets a little customization and personalization to it. But districts can provide templates to make this consistent.
2) Modules - as teachers were constantly chunking our material and organizing them into units and lessons. So it makes sense to have an online platform that lets you chunk the material into units and lessons. Again what’s really slick with canvases you can design a framework and then simply duplicate that module for new weeks or new units. Also you can quickly re-order your modules so that the relevant information is always at the top.
3) Video - I love Google docs, sheets and slides, however, one of the main attractions for Canvas in a page, assignment, discussion board, pretty much anywhere in Canvas is the ability to not only upload and post and embed but also to simply record directly into the page. Teachers and students alike can leverage the Canvas media recorder capture the video and post it. It’s so slick and simple. Also, instead of a hyperdoc where you have to open the video in a new tab, if you embed videos in the page with the Contant videos simply play. Talk about easy, which is the reasons I normally use for Google things. In this example Canvas is making it easy.
4) Speedgrader - A huge differentiator is the power of speedgrader. Now I must admit, Google assignments is developing tools similar to speedgrader. But Canvas and speedgrader has already accomplished it. In addition to using rubrics, scores, text comments, you can leave multimedia video feedback. As mentioned above, speedgrader lets you reply with video and let your students reply with video. It also has the ability to save canned responses to use them on other students replies. Another slick thing is the mobile Canvas teacher app that includes speedgrader. Again so slick and easy.
5) Google LTi - and my final point is you don’t have to pick one or the other. You can simply embed Google documents directly into Canvas pages or enable to canvas google assignments LTi and leverage the power of Google classroom functionality like making a template a copy of a document for each student. Also students can select files from their Google documents to submit to a canvas assignment. There’s no need to stop doing Google things rather you’re upgrading the experience with Google by using Canvas.
Hope you found these five points helpful. I hope you can also feel that I don’t hate Google classroom. It is a great tool and serves a purpose. However, I find using the structure and tools in Canvas I can elevate my lessons and impact and truly design learning experiences that are digital rich and seamless in access.
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