97 Canvas on iPad with Miguel Garcia-Gosalvez – 02.02.2018

At the February 2, 2018 Active Teaching Lab, Miguel Garcia-Gosalvez demonstrated how he uses Canvas on an iPad. Two different Canvas-related iPad apps offered by Instructure allow users to capture the portability and flexibility of a mobile device without losing the features and capabilities of Canvas on a regular computer.

Takeaways:

• Top-of-the-line technology isn’t required to achieve satisfactory functionality; Miguel uses a low-end $299 iPad and loves it.
• The Canvas Teacher and Canvas Student apps help a lot toward making the mobile version of Canvas useful, but they don’t replace the computer.
• Depending on how you set up your assignments, SpeedGrader works great on the iPad.
• The Canvas Student app comes in handy from time to time, even for instructors. The apps focus on different elements based on the needs of the roles of the users.
• Several tasks are much easier on the Canvas apps than on the computer browser version. Experiment and find which tasks work better for you on which device. For example, long typing tasks are still easier on a computer.
• In the Canvas Teacher app, the Assignments feature includes dashboards that quickly and easily display the status of submissions: graded, needs grading, and not submitted.

To learn more, check out the session’s activity sheet.

Active Teaching Labs are held Fridays from 8:30-9:45am in room 120, Middleton Building (1305 Linden Dr.) as well as some Wednesdays from 12:30-1:30pm in room 302 Middleton Building. Check out upcoming Labs or read the recaps from past Labs.

Similar to the Active Teaching Labs, Active Teaching Exchanges feature instructors sharing their teaching experiences with tools and techniques, but provide more time for discussion without the hands-on investigation time. Exchanges are are held Thursdays from 1-2pm in room 120, Middleton Building. See the full calendar of both events. Stay informed about upcoming Labs and Exchanges by signing up for regular announcements by sending an email to join-activeteaching@lists.wisc.edu.