What Features Do Teachers Want in Canvas Mobile?

[rseilham]

I have heard this for years, and it still persist this year as well -- teachers want to be able to design their courses on mobile devices. Yesterday during Deactivated user​'s session on what's new with Canvas mobile apps, she asked "Who wants a teacher app to design your courses?". The crowd was very loud in showing their need/want for this kind of app. This wasn't a surprise as I have heard from many that the main Canvas by Instructure mobile app is student centered and offers little for teachers, although I think there are a lot of communication opportunities.

My question is -- What features do teachers want in Canvas mobile apps?

Personally I think it's unrealistic, and probably not a good use of resources to mimic the web features 100 percent. If you think I am wrong, let me know why. Although with the UI update for Canvas in the near future, tablets will have a better experience.

I do think there are many "in the moment" features that can be implemented in the app to make it much more useful for course management. A few examples include

• Publish and unpublish modules, assignments, quizzes
• Access to assignment settings across all apps
• Being able to see student last activity and total activity
• View and manage student groups
• A better, more mobile attendance tool
• Course settings: Adjust navigation, hide/unhide navigation

What other features do you want? Let's chat!

PS: At hack night I sat down with a mobile engineer (Deactivated user) and we were able to develop the ability to publish and unpublish modules in the iOS app. Here's a screenshot:

[mlennox]

I would love for our teachers to be able to create assignments from their mobile device and have the ability to attach documents from Google Drive or other apps where they've created content like Notability, Explain Everything, etc. Even if there was a way to have the teacher use "Open In" and have a placeholder spot for attaching those documents to an assignment similar to the process our students use when uploading their work for a submission.

I don't know if that's a possibility, but it's something our faculty has mentioned as a cool feature they'd like to see.

[Renee_Carney]

 @rseilham ​

Great post!  This is very well put together and thoughtful.  I would also recommend posting a collection of links to feature ideas related to your post.  This will allow others that find your collective thoughts and agree to vote on feature ideas that can help move mobile forward!

I'll see what links I can find, but please also take a look.

If you do not find any related feature ideas, please submit them.  How to write a good feature idea submission​

[dhulsey]

I would like a quick an easy way to see a student's current grade in the course. This could occur in either the speedgrader app or the main canvas app.

[rseilham]

I agree with this. I know that making the app a one stop shop for faculty development might be in the distant future, but I'd like to see more ways to tie in quick teacher features.  Being able to see a read-only version of the grade book would be a great start and a practical add to the SpeedGrader app.