Similarities and Differences?

 

What are the similarities and differences when designing in these platforms?

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So if we're going to do an honest comparison of edX and Canvas, they're very different. I think you know, on the one hand, you have edX, which has over 20 million registered users, which typically has little to no enrollment caps on its courses, which has courses that are modular in nature and that are built to be rerun over and over and over again. This vastly different than something like Canvas, which is typically credit-bearing courses for an established institution. Usually courses are capped at 30 students. Occasionally they'd go higher and the courses they run, they run over and over. But the faculty are expected to redesign and change them between runs. So they're very different than just laying those things on paper. I think my experience working with them, the main differences that edX was simply platformed that you have to you have to keep in mind what it was originally designed to do, what it was originally built to do, which is to distribute and run these MOOC style course that these massive open online courses. So a lot of the tools available that support more traditional teaching methods and more classroom-based methods, like the instructor, graded open-ended work like an instructor grading an essay, the tools just aren't there to do something like that in the platform. And so you have to be aware of your limitations, and you have to approach your design in a way that's very smart. Or you can get hung up easily. I think with the edX platform; you can sort of back yourself into a corner with that. In addition to that, simply working in Canvas is easier. It's easier to code in there. It's easier to connect things, it's easier to explain things to instructors, especially in the edX platform, a lot is done on the back end, and a lot can only be done in coding. They don't have as robust a rich content editor. In fact, we don't even let our instructors build in edX because we because the group level permissions are not such that instructors if we if we wanted to let them in and let them build the courses themselves, they would have access to everything and they would have the ability to compromise those courses in a variety of ways by toggling the wrong settings or by changing things that we wouldn't necessarily want them to change. So with Canvas, we can set permissions, and we can make sure that things stay separated so that faculty can actually get to work themselves directly with the platform. It's easier to do; it's easier to teach. So edX also has a number of, I suppose they're frustrating irregularities. What's the way that it's built and coded, but again, much of that has to do with where the platform comes from as a Mooc based platform. As far as similarities, I think that you know, they, you can offer them both, they both, you can offer a quality course in either platform. You just have to all really make sure that you come at it with the right design principles essentially. So it's something like edX, you're going to, you're going to need much, much more common quick formative feedback via these auto-graded problems. Actually, they won't be graded; it would be formative feedback, so wouldn't go to the grade book. I say auto-graded, machine graded with edX. I want machine graded problems on every single page students to visit, because they're not going to get any interaction from the instructor, or they'll get some from the facilitator. But to know they're on the right track, they have to constantly; you have to make the feedback loop shorter and shorter and shorter. With canvas where you can do, you can do direct instructor feedback; you can do conferencing on there. You can do more open-ended assignments like written assignments, essays, and things. Then those feedback loops don't need to be quite as tight or as frequent in order for students to stay on track so that you can develop a quality course for either one. You just have to be very aware of your limitations, and you have to think about the design process a lot when you're trying to create those courses. Other similarities include standard LMS, things like ways that students can interact, discussion boards, and things like that still exist. And both edx and Canvas, although discussion boards are sort of open and not very moderated. And then edX, obviously due to the open nature of the platform. But those are some similarities and differences between the two platforms that I have noted while working on them. I will say that I prefer Canvas as an LMS, although I am excited to see what kinds of things we can do in edX and what kinds of people we can reach with that large audience. And I like learning new systems. I'm always up for the challenge of working in either one of the platforms.