There are many tools that educators can use to create online course shells to organize, streamline, and facilitate student learning. For this particular quest, I used Canvas. I chose this software because it seemed user-friendly and relatively simple. The clean, uncluttered design also appealed to me.
The funny thing is that I was sure that it would take me a while to set up my online course and to organize and upload assignments, but in less than five minutes I had registered, set up my course, and uploaded assignments to that course. Canvas had plenty of sensible, practical options that I could use to deliver assignments and announcements to my students. I particularly liked the calendar feature, where I could view a month and simply drag assignments or tasks to another day. To upload assignments, I just had to click on the assignment button, click "choose file" and select the file I wanted to share. I could give assignments dates, titles, and notes, and then sync those assignments with my calendar.
As we've discussed here already, these tools can prove invaluable for today's teachers. Many of the tools are designed with virtual classrooms in mind, but they could be so useful in more traditional classrooms as well. Since it seems nearly impossible to pry the phones, ipods, and tablets out of the hands of my students, these tools can provide a medium through which I can reach the students on their own level.
As we've also already discussed, the time that a teacher saves using tools such as Canvas can free up time to delve more deeply into the data we have on each student so that we can customize instruction for our students and target problem areas.
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