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:
