During the pandemic, I've spent more time than I'm willing to admit in Tik Tok and was reminded of one of those videos that say "I'll go first." Well, I'm bringing that moment to the Canvas community with the following question. 

What is your Canvas Student app usage at your school? I'll go first!

It’s tough to put an exact number on usage. There are two ways users can access Canvas on mobile devices; the web and the app. The web is easy to understand with the usage of Google Analytics but is less popular than the app.

Looking at the web pageviews only, here is the breakdown: 

• Desktop: 84%
• Smartphone: 16%
• Tablet: less than .2%

Another unique stat is the length of a user session per every visit to Canvas:

• Desktop: 14:33
• Tablet: 9:03
• Mobile: 5:51

As for the mobile app...This requires some digging and covering your eyes to try to pull out anything worth reporting. 

Through surveys, Canvas Data, and other data sources, we can safely assume: 

• 90% of UCF students use the mobile app at least once a week.
• Mobile app usage (and some tablets) is 20-25%. Sounds small, but MILLIONS of page views every year. 

Students that use the mobile app (and web too) seem to mainly use the app for quick interactions related to:

1. How am I doing in class? (Grades)
2. What do I need to do? (Assignment and Assignment descriptions)
3. How do I do it? (To do / Calendar / Modules)

You can read more from a 2018 report, which is still very true today:

https://digitallearning.ucf.edu/msi/research/canvas/survey2018/

Even though students do take quizzes, submit assignments, and engage in discussions on mobile. Most of these interactions are much more common on a desktop. Either way, mobile access is still significant and valued by students, especially to stay connected.

With the introduction of Apple Silicon at last week's Apple WWDC 2020, the Mac is ready for the most significant transition of all time! Will we see Canvas Mobile Apps on macOS for the first time? The truth lies below!

*You'll be glad you did.

It's been a slow developing love affair Canvas Apps.

Oregon State surveyed over 2,000 of their ecampus students about their device preferences and were surprised with some of the results (according to a Webinar I attended that was hosted by the researchers Mary Ellen Dello Stritto, Ph.D. and Katie Linder, Ph.D.).

I have been recently researching ways to reach the Modern Learner via mobile lessons, activities, projects, and plans.  Yes, there are a lot of apps out there that are beneficial, but as  @biray  and  @rseilham  stated "While the Canvas app is effective in translating your course to be responsive on a mobile device, it is the job of the teacher or instructional designer to effectively design assignments to address the on-the-go learner."

The Information School, iSchool, at the University of Washington has been providing templates for our Canvas courses since about late 2012. We started using Canvas in fall of 2011. Our templates have evolved with the available technological advances and we have spent the last few months designing for the next iteration. One of my colleagues, putrih‌, has spent a great deal of time working on this new generation of templates.

One of the most difficult things online educators have is to keep up with the changes in technology, especially mobile.

It has taken some time to encourage students and faculty to use mobile apps when accessing our Canvas instance, but we have made a lot of progress.

Canvas provides instructors with an opportunity to rethink the technological side of their course - and mobile activity is one of the major areas in which this occurs! As I watched the video series for mobile assignments (which is fantastic, by the way), it really made me think that we design courses as if we are transferring them from paper to electronic, instead of being "born digital."

We've all been there. You find the perfect website that has content that you would love to share in your Canvas course, only to find, after the fact, that the content doesn't scale appropriately or doesn't render when opened on a mobile device.

I have been working in Higher Education for twelve or thirteen years now. I can remember using a VCR to record videoconferencing sessions, and now we have SaaS technologies for remote learners around the globe.

For consistency, I'm blatantly copying  @KristinL ‌'s blog post (Google LTI + Canvas Mobile) in case someone has similar questions about the new Office 365 integration its compatibility with the Canvas Mobile Apps. There are so many things to test! Let me know if you have a different experience. Sometimes things work with one device and not another device. I'll fill in the gaps as I do more experimentation.