After having 61 pilot groups during the 2018 fall semester, all students and faculty members are now using a new learning management system in the classroom.
Mississippi State University replaced Blackboard to give students and faculty a user-friendly interface through Canvas by Instructure.
Since last summer, over 750 faculty and staff members were trained to use this new learning management system, according to Lead Instructional Tech Specialist Tina Green.
“We’ve done a ‘Getting Started with Canvas’ workshop for them,” Green said. “We’ve also held Canvas Corners, which are open lab times in the computer lab where they can come in and actually work on their actual course and get guidance for that. In addition to that, we have done webinars using our new product called Webex, which allows us to accommodate more people at one time where they all log in from their computer and we are just teaching the seminar online. We’ve also put a lot of information online for faculty and students to get help for how to use canvas.”
Last fall, Department Head of Communication John Forde was a part of the pilot program for his course Principles of Public Relations. Forde began training over the summer, but he had to stop his training to tend to a family member’s illness. According to Forde, he did not have any issues once he was able to begin training again because the system is so intuitive.
“I really liked Blackboard, but with Canvas, there are typically fewer actions you have to take in order to provide material,” Forde said.
Similarly, Green believes the only difference is the user interface.
“It’s kind of like the difference between any two competitor programs,” Green said. “They all do the same thing. You are still going to be able to view your files, submit assignments, take quizzes and see your grades. It’s just a matter of the terminology being a little different. In Canvas, they’ve streamlined the navigation, but that’s one of the benefits of Canvas. There’s a lot of streamlining that’s been done to Canvas to make it more user friendly for both the faculty and the students.”
Freshman Madison Crump, a communication major, agrees with Green about Canvas’ user interface. She was not in any of the pilot courses last semester, but she said she believes the university-wide transition will enhance the classroom experience with the intuitive interface.
With a different interface, students can find most of their course content in Modules.
“I like being able to create modules easily,” Forde said. “I told students to think of these as ‘chapters’ or ‘big topic areas’ and you can put subcategories.”
Canvas allows students to comment on their content, and students are also available to determine their “What-If” grade.
“One of the things students like is where you can project your grade and see what grade you could possibly receive,” Forde said. “People could do that anyway, but you would have to do some sometimes-complicated math.”
While MSU has integrated with Canvas, there is also an integration with Google. Students and faculty are able to sync their Google Drives through BullyMail to Canvas.
Students and faculty are able to access multiple other learning tools through Canvas, according to Green.
“If you go into your settings in Canvas, you can authorize Canvas to access that Google Drive,” Green said. “When you are getting ready to submit assignments to your instructor, you see the option to say Google Drive, and you can go and find your file in your Google Drive. We recommend that all students need to authorize their Google account.”
Along with Google Drive, students and faculty can upload video or audio files through Arc.
“Arc is a media repository,” Green said. “It’s also going to allow students to use Arc to submit assignments, and they could make a video of themselves speaking an assignment or recording their screen and talking over the Power Points.”
With these integrations, students can submit assignments through Canvas by uploading a file from their computer or through Arc and Google Drive, Green said.
According to Crump, submitting assignments via Canvas is much easier than with Blackboard.
While Canvas has a user-friendly desktop interface, the free mobile app is just as intuitive.
“Canvas’s mobile app is very good and robust,” Green said. “There is actually a Canvas Student app and a Canvas Teacher app. They allow you to work within Canvas very nicely from your mobile device, and that’s probably one of the biggest benefits of this product.”
With a mobile app, push-notifications are sent to the student or faculty’s phone when an assignment, grade or announcement is posted. Users are able to customize when and how they will receive notifications.
“You have the ability to set those settings, and you have the ability to say whether or not you want to receive those notifications daily, weekly, monthly or do not send,” Green said. “We’ve loaded all of the students’ BullyMail email addresses into the system, and the students can actually go into their settings and load a personal email address or cell phone number.”
With both the mobile app and the desktop interface, Canvas notifies students based on their preference, but students can also receive notifications about course updates and messages.
“Canvas is more interpersonal,” Crump said. “It’s easier to get in touch with professors and students, and it has an app, which I like. It has a calendar which can alert you when assignments are due.”
While there has been much training taken place to prepare the switch to Canvas for faculty, Green believes the biggest benefit is the number of students who have used this management system before.
“The great vast majority of our students already know how to use it because community colleges have been using it for a long time, and even K-12 schools,” Green said. “Many of our students had never used Blackboard before until they got to this campus.”