Instead of losing valuable class time to unexpected campus closings during emergencies or inclement weather, consider developing a continuity plan for connecting with your students online via Kannu. First, communicate with your students. Then consider your options for synchronous (real time) and asynchronous (time-shifted) instruction and interaction.

Communicate with your students

Having a consistent communication strategy is necessary to avoid confusion. The fastest way to communicate with your entire class from within Kannu is to post an Announcement. Announcements can be emailed directly to all of the students in your class, and there will then be a record on the Announcements page of your message that can be viewed at any time.

Tell your students where to locate course information online and provide detailed instructions for assignments, online meetings, and technologies. Make sure your syllabus is up to date with course changes as needed.

Synchronous Tools in Kannu

Integrate video-conferencing into Your Class

Kannu is built for media streaming and has support for a number of options regarding live broadcast and synchronous and asynchronous distance learning. Most video-conferencing solutions like Zoom, GoToMeeting, BlueJeans, Google Meet, Cisco WebEx, etc., provide a direct share link which can be easily added to any Kannu page with the Rich Content Editor. For example, the link can be shared through a course announcement or added to the Session Content module for day’s session/class/virtual meeting.

Some video-conferencing solutions can also be embedded directly within the Session Media player. For one-directional streaming, platforms like YouTube Live work well. For more interactive multi-person video conferencing/screen sharing, Zoom is a popular option. The Zoom call can also be directly embedded in the session media player, and the recorded video can be uploaded to the Session for archival purposes, so students who missed class can access the recording at a later time.

Real-time Chat (“Direct Messenger”)

For a simple, text-based chat with students, consider taking advantage of Kannu’s Direct Messenger feature. The Direct Messenger enables conversations between individuals and also group messages for small group learning scenarios.

Asynchronous Tools in Kannu

From posting readings to submitting homework, the bulk of Kannu features support asynchronous course activity. Here are some to consider using if you can’t meet with your class face-to-face:

1. Create discussion boards using Kannu’s Forums.
2. Assignments, worksheets, and other activities may also help make up for lost class time.
3. Consider pre-recording video using your laptop or webcam to quickly create and share videos with your class through the session media player or create video assignments for your students.
4. The Session media player lets you playlist your own uploaded media (audio/video) content seamlessly with embedded content from other resources like Youtube, Vimeo, and more.
5. The coursework Gallery and course Forums are designed to be integrated directly within your assignment coursework activities to increase peer-to-peer interaction asynchronously.
6. H5P is a great way to create engaging and interactive lesson content like interactive videos, presentations, and other kinds of activities. H5P can be embedded directly in the Session Content or Session Media Player.
7. Learning Modules let you sequence your course activities like Session and Coursework.

Additional Resources

Kannu Help Articles

Other Resources

Need Help? Contact Us!

Kannu’s support team is available to assist you in developing your Kannu contingency plan based on your course needs. Please contact us at support@kadenze.com

Among other things, conventional education is still struggling to provide an engaging and personalized learning experience. Therefore, students, aren’t getting fully involved in what and how they learn. Also, a chronic lack of time, competitive social and academic environment, and the need to repay student loans create this urgency of getting the best grades and graduating at any cost. It results in students turning to plagiarism to help them succeed. 

On average, 39% of students admit to cheating on tests, and one in seven students pays essay mills to get their work written for them.

Education has clearly shifted, and it’s amazing that one single piece of software like Kannu can serve as an inclusive medium of everything educational institution comprises.

Academic misconduct has evolved since the times of hand-written assignments, and so have the tools used to detect and prevent it in text. Most importantly, present-day plagiarism prevention tools are built not to punish negligent learners, but instead to help them detect bottlenecks and challenges in their learning process and still be able to get a high-quality education. After all, it’s the success of the students that defines the effectiveness of the entire educational system.

Why Kannu has a plagiarism prevention solution on board

In the pursuit of building a seamless and meaningful experience for every user, we also wanted Kannu to address all the burning aspects of the educational process–full-scale plagiarism management was one of them.

Our partner, Unicheck (a solution for plagiarism detection and authorship verification), became a perfect match. It offers both a flawless native experience with its fully automated processes and a comprehensive proof for a fair assessment and quality education with the Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, and Natural Language Processing technologies it utilizes.

What’s good about Unicheck plagiarism detection in Kannu:

• Saves time – text scanning processes are fully automated, and results are available in a couple of minutes after the work is uploaded

• Gives an ample base for fair assessment – each text is compared to the newest web pages and results across the Internet, as well as scientific databases and the institution’s library of academic papers (or other learners’ submissions)

• Provides self-learning opportunities – students can viwe Unicheck reports as soon as they’re generated to see which parts require original thought and revision

• Facilitates learning process personalization – broad originality analysis of student assignments gives educators ground for adjusting curriculums so that a diverse population of students is equally able to demonstrate their knowledge

How to use Unicheck in Kannu:

• An intuitive similarity report is generated automatically in a couple of minutes after the submission and is available next to every submitted paper in Kannu

• A text modification assistant, Modifind, detects and reports manipulations made in text straight in the similarity report

• An authorship verification assistant, Emma, that validates the unique writing style of the student based on the previously examined works – available for beta testing

If you are interested in learning how Unicheck can help you achieve your academic goals, reach out to kannu@kadenze.com or contact sales@unicheck.com, and let them know you’re interested in Kannu+Unicheck.

About 4 years ago, I started out with my online efforts to share my love of visual effects for games. My first content was on YouTube, where I created a series of videos teaching people to animate 2D FX frame-by-frame. After that, I made a series of bite-size breakdowns explaining how I do what I do in the 3D FX for the game “League of Legends.” Throughout this time, I was wondering how I might actually take a stab at creating paid content. Whatever route I would take, I knew the first step was to gain an audience that could make the whole thing viable. So I kept making more content.

Then in August 2018, I launched my first attempt with paid 1:1 mentorships on Patreon. Any time I mentioned “I wanna sell VFX education online,” the immediate answer from all my professional artist friends was “PATREON!” So I gave it a shot.

Patreon has an amazing reputation and I am grateful that I was able to get started there and connect with my target audience.  Over the next 7 months, as I set out to implement my plans, I realized that I needed much more in order to offer the experience I sought for my patrons and to build my education business to the level I desired.  I needed a platform with a robust and comprehensive toolset, including in the area of payment processing.  As important, I needed individualized customer service and even some hand-holding.

So in February 2019, I decided that I would build a stand-alone course, and began looking for a platform I could use. Friends of mine had tried to build their own website from scratch, which had led to a myriad of problems, both in cost and maintenance of their technology. And I knew I didn’t want to publish courses on someone else’s store, as the income from those wasn’t enough to build a thriving business model. I was hoping to find something in-between the two: a platform with all the trappings of an online course that was already built, which I could use as the back-end for my own unique web site.

I mentioned this search to a friend who knew one of the founders of Kadenze, Inc., the company behind Kannu, the leading learning management system for the creative world. I reached out and learned they were conveniently located in northern LA county. We set up an in-person meeting, and it was immediately clear this was the partnership i needed to launch the next phase of my online teaching.

Not only did they have the technology already built, but it had been in use by major creative institutions for years already. So we met at their office in Valencia, and got to work. By April 2019, I had announced the course, and we successfully launched in September. Throughout the journey getting there, I felt supported and guided by their staff, to whom I sent far too many emails, I’m sure! Being so new to all of this, I had many, many questions. They were nothing but helpful in return.

Then when it came time to record a promotional video for the course (green screen and all) Kadenze, Inc. was all set up with an in-house studio, and gave me a great price on the production and editing costs. You can see how the promo video turned out here:

Working with Kannu has been an absolute perfect fit for my business plans, and I recommend them without hesitation. I’m so excited to launch even more courses on my site, adding even more teachers and mentors to help my growing audience of students reach their artistic and career goals.

Jason Keyser is an artist, animator, and founder of VFX Apprentice. 

Kadenze Inc.’s Kannu LMS customer, Unity Technologies, and the USC School of Cinematic Arts (rated #1 school in Game Design) launched a new adaptive online course called Unity + USC Games Unlocked: Design and Publish Your Original Game, which is hosted on Kannu LMS. Students will have the opportunity to learn the core fundamentals of designing and publishing an original 2D or 3D game from scratch.

The eight-week course consists of 18 sessions and provides an overview of game design and development through the Unity real-time 3D development platform, with successful titles such as Assassin’s Creed and Hearthstone. In addition to designing a game, the course introduces students to the publication process so they can put their game on the market.

With an emphasis on video lectures, hands-on projects, and online community, the comprehensive course offers content that extends beyond tutorials. It’s recommended that students have some experience working in Unity prior to enrolling in the course.

Taught by USC faculty, the course also features top game designers, developers, and industry expert guest speakers including Will Armstrong, lead programmer on hit adventure game Firewatch and Spotlight Programmer at Unity Technologies. 

To purchase the course, click here.

Using Modules to Deepen Engagement

A simple way to structure course material and underline key concepts is by using  learning modules. Instructors can use modules to group course activities like Sessions and Coursework around topics, mixing and matching lessons and assessments in a directed pathway. This allows the learner to follow a specified learning sequence of activities, and track their progress along the way.

Not sure how to organize or title modules? Effective modules should employ language that reflects student learning outcomes, such as phrases like “Designing a Website” or “Creating an Audio Plug-in”.

Modules introduce a linear workflow through sequenced activities like Sessions, Coursework, and Resources. They work to streamline the user experience by allowing instructors to organize and contain information. Adding modules is beneficial because they function as learning paths, guiding students step-by-step through a course’s lessons and activities. Modules also help students stay on track by saving their progress, so each time students log in to the LMS they can continue from where they left off.

In Kannu, we use modules to:

• Organize course content and activities including sessions, coursework, and resources
• Create prerequisites that learners must complete before moving on in a course (e.g. completing the activities in Module A is a prerequisite to move on to the activities in Module B)
• Track student progress through a sequence of learning activities
• Create milestones for students to complete in order to receive badges

Using Badges To Visualize Achievements

At Kadenze, one way we use badges is to offer rewards within a course that learners earn when they pick up a new skill, pass tests, or achieve other milestones. As a gamification and encouragement mechanism, badges are designed to keep students motivated and goal-oriented. The purpose of badges is to help students assess their progress and emphasize certain achievements or topics through a merit-based system. As symbols of merit, earning badges should be meaningful, challenging, and help to visualize student performance.

We encourage instructors to be creative with badge titles! We prefer words that refer to students’ knowledge of a subject, progress within a course, or quality of their work. Some examples of milestones include “First Creative Code Exercise”, “Quiz Master”, “20 Gallery Comments”, “Insightful Communicator”. We keep them casual — they should be fun and reinforce each student’s unique academic performance.

Instructors can design and author customized badges through several free design tools online, such as such as Canva and OpenBadges.me. Badges can then be configured to be automatically awarded when a student completes a module. Students can access Badges via their Profile and Portfolio in the Badges tab.

We have found that modules and badges accelerate interactive learning and keep students engaged in the digital classroom. Completing modules and collecting badges drives a sense of achievement and personal growth in learners. Through these features, our instructors create a more personalized educational experience that recognizes and rewards students’ accomplishments in the classroom.

Out of 300 LMS platforms evaluated, Kannu landed amongst the Top Ten performers in the FrontRunners quadrant. To be eligible for consideration, products must have at least 20 reviews and are judged in two major areas: user-recommendation and usability. They’re also distinguished between small and enterprise vendors.

Kannu previously made last years’ FrontRunners report, so this is the second time that Kannu was ranked by Software Advice/Gartner as a Top LMS. Being just a few years old and already challenging the biggest names in the industry, we’re proud to have carved out a place on the map and are overjoyed to see such positive feedback from our users. Both Kannu and kadenze.com (our beloved online learning platform that’s uses Kannu as it’s backbone) have seen tremendous amount of growth in the past year, from the introduction of learning modules to Kadenze For Business. We’re proud to offer a world-class product that consistently connects users through digital learning. Looking ahead, it only makes us more excited for things to come. Thank you for being part of this journey!  

To learn more about what Kannu can do for you, check out kannu.com.

FrontRunners constitute the subjective opinions of individual end-user reviews, ratings and data applied against a documented methodology; they neither represent the views of, nor constitute an endorsement by, Software Advice or its affiliates.

The FrontRunners quadrant for LMS is available at https://www.softwareadvice.com/lms/#top-products

Established in 2014 by Jay LeBoeuf, the non-profit organization Real Industry aims to provide aspiring professionals with knowledge from industry leaders in the entertainment and media technology spaces. Real Industry has partnered with many of the country’s leading institutions, while notable companies they’ve worked with include Pandora, Bose, and Sonos.

Jay LeBoeuf serves as Real Industry’s current Executive Director. His vision with the company began with the need to create a path for students pursuing careers in arts and technology fields. At the heart of the program is their assembly of industry experts who directly engage with students and impart the lessons they’ve learned over their careers.

“When I created Real Industry, I wanted a way that we could reach students—anywhere—not only at any university, but at any stage of their life”, says LeBoeuf.  

LeBoeuf started by making 2 classes for kadenze.com: Careers in Media Technology and Inside the Music & Video Tech Industry. In producing these courses he discovered what online learning can offer, and since then has launched his own Real Industry-specific online learning portal and community using Kannu, which he has used to inspire thousands of students around the country. 

Course material such as case studies, discussion forums, collaborative assignments, and design challenges are all powered by the Kannu learning management system. LeBoeuf describes Kannu as a convenient “one-stop solution” to manage the necessary course materials. By crossing over to an online format and adopting its many benefits, Real Industry has access to a wider network of mentors to provide to its students.

“We work with major universities such as Stanford, MIT, UC Berkeley, Carnegie Mellon, and University of Michigan to launch the design challenges in-person,” LeBoeuf explains. “We then have all of our students register for our Kannu portal, where they continue their work, seek support in the online discussion groups, and submit their designs through the portal.”

By bringing in mentors, the often abstract process of career development is demystified. Students have an idea of what type of milestones they need to achieve in order to advance their careers, but understanding the necessary action items can be difficult. Being exposed to real-life anecdotes and experiences from industry experts can give students the valuable insight they need. They are able to talk with leaders who’ve overcome similar professional obstacles, letting them take others’ real-world experience and use it to find their own direction through their own journeys.

“There exists an array of barriers between qualified and passionate university talent and those opportunities,” LeBoeuf says. “The mentor network made up of over 300 industry professionals is arguably the most important piece of what we do, as having experienced people in your corner willing to help you get your foot in the door is invaluable.”

Furthermore, what distinguishes Real Industry’s curriculum is that their courses and workshops contain prompts designed in collaboration by the companies themselves, mimicking common business and technical issues. This includes design challenges that allow students to think about what goes into creating their favorite tech products and services, and confront the types of issues that might occur in the production process. Real Industry presents a formidable, alternative education model by offering an environment that allows problem-solving exercises which simulate the work done at those businesses.

“[W]e design the experience to ensure that students are given the opportunities to step into different perspectives and use a variety of skills as they work towards solutions and innovations,” states LeBoeuf.

Real Industry’s hands-on approach speaks to the professional needs of students in an evolving digital world. They emphasize the significance of introducing courses that ensure students’ skills are primed to surpass industry demands. Real Industry doesn’t just connect young professionals to leaders, but equips them with the insider knowledge they need so they can prosper alongside them.  

“The most impactful way of allowing students equal access to the best companies in the world was to share stories, case studies, and collaborative assignments in an online format. Now, students can prepare for their future careers anywhere, anytime.”

More and more higher education institutions are incorporating digital educational programs.

This adoption is shaping the future of learning as new pedagogical methods are being developed in response to the availability of new technologies and platforms.

Some of these new methods include:

• Blended Courses: incorporate in-person and digital learning into one class, with more emphasis on online activities.
• Flipped Courses: students view lecture content before a class, then spend in-class time on more active learning interactions with the instructor and students.
• MOOC (Massive Open Online Course): fully online courses that are open for public enrollment, often attracting thousands of students worldwide.

Of all these approaches, each have the opportunity to provide affordable courses, open access to resources, and individualize the educational needs of all students. Another significant benefit audiences may not realize is that online learning can provide significant environmental benefits. By starting to integrate digital learning tools into classroom and curricula, we can reduce our ecological footprints and encourage more sustainability.

Importance of Ecological Footprints

An ecological footprint tracks our demand and supply of our planet’s natural resources.

Demand (or ecological footprint) falls under our consumption of natural resources, while supply (or biocapacity) falls under the Earth’s capacity to produce them. If the demand and supply are close in value, that means there are enough resources for us to consume.

In the United States alone, there is a 133% biocapacity deficit (the percentage of ecological footprint that exceeds biocapacity) which translates to an immense over-consumption of our natural resources just within one country. As our environmental reserves are dwindling, sustainability has never been more important. There are a number of ways we can prevent further damage and online education is one key, viable solution.

We’ll be looking intro three factors that can limit our ecological footprint within college and university campuses: transportation, waste prevention, and tree preservation.

Transportation + Waste Prevention

In a study by U.S. News (2013), about 19 percent of freshmen students took their own vehicles to campus or lived off-campus.

With that in mind, car exhaust itself causes irreversible damage to the environment. With the emission of carbon monoxide and other harmful pollutants, vehicles have become “one-third of all U.S. air pollution.”

If courses integrated the use of blended learning (in-person sessions merged with online learning) for example, students would be able to reduce the amount of gas emissions with fewer commutes per week, while still having access to on-campus learning.

In terms of waste prevention, the average college student produces an average of 640 lbs. of solid waste each year. Colleges within the U.S. waste 22 million lbs. of food yearly. In a study conducted by the University of Missouri (2014), their sports stadium alone created 47.3 metric tons of food waste.

As these studies show, food waste is a major problem within college environments. All discarded food ends up in landfills to decompose and produce methane, a potent greenhouse gas that has been rapidly changing our environment and weather patterns.

Along with landfills, the resources and production that goes into making our food also affects our environment. Various factors such as harmful pesticides or the extended use of water and land can contaminate drinking water and harm wildlife.

In the same way that introducing blended learning courses can help to reduce weekly commutes to campus, strategies that involve both online and on-campus learning could reduce waste by limiting the amount of students on campus to contribute to any food or solid waste.

Tree Preservation

As mentioned previously, the average college student creates about 640 lbs. of waste each year. Within that amount, students dispose nearly 320 lbs. of paper alone. Paper waste take up enormous amounts of natural resources—most significantly trees.

Around “3.5 billion to 7 billion trees [are] cut down each year.” If more colleges adapt to paperless learning, we would be able to expand the existing benefits of trees such as providing ecosystems for wildlife, absorbing carbon dioxide and other poisonous gases, and easing feelings of anxiety or depression.

From countless copies of readings and handouts, to essays and paper-based quizzes/exams, paper plays a significant role in educational institutions. However, if those physical copies were transferred online into a learning management system (LMS) like Kannu, students would be able to have access to all necessary class materials within a digital space. Not only would this result in a significant reduction of natural resources, but printing costs would also decrease substantially. Moreover, digital tools such as LMS platforms make the day-to-day work of an instructor or administrator much more efficient: can you imagine never having to print, collate, or staple a course handout again? Yes, it’s a beautiful thing.

Remember, even small steps toward incorporating digital learning can provide meaningful changes towards a more sustainable world, and it’s never too late to get started.

On July 31, 2018 at 10 AM PST we will be hosting a free live webinar!

Attention educators! Join us for an in-depth webinar on “Peer Learning and Engaging Students Online”. This is the second part of our summer webinar series where we discuss trending strategies in online learning, emerging technologies for teaching and course development, and more. In this session we’ll explore methods of boosting student engagement in online learning through active and collaborative learning.

This webinar will be hosted by Harmony Jiroudek and Sarah Reid. They’re part of the Kadenze, Inc. team who built the digital learning platform that powers kadenze.com (Kannu) and have helped schools and companies all around the world design online courses and strategies.

One of the challenges in online learning is creating an interactive environment similar to a physical classroom. Our goal for this webinar is to share tips and techniques for increasing student engagement through features such as forums and in-video quizzes, setting up interactive courses, and leveraging the potential of peer collaboration and feedback. The event is free and open to everyone interested in learning more about the applications of education technology for various platforms!

Click here to register for the webinar and save your spot!

If you’re unable to attend at this time, recordings will be made available to everyone following the event.

Located in Los Angeles, Otis College of Art and Design is a haven for aspiring artists seeking an education that offers a spectrum of disciplines. Known for its programs in fine arts, architecture, digital media, and more, it’s one of the most distinguished professional schools of art in California. At Otis College, developing artists from all backgrounds can work on unique projects that reflect their individuality.

To supplement their core curriculum, the college recently implemented an online platform as part of their Otis College Extension program. It was created as part of their mission to widen their reach to a global audience, and features online courses in multiple subjects like photography, fashion design, and graphic design. The college uses the Kannu Learning Management System to power their eLearning Extension courses for both online and hybrid formats.

Jean-Marie Venturini is the Instructional Designer and Assistant Director of the Teaching and Learning Center at Otis College. She explained how Otis and their online program is instrumental in helping students achieve their aspirations in art and design. While they are still getting to know the profile of their online learners, Venturini describes their typical student as someone looking to refine their artistic and design skill-set.

“The mission of Otis College of Art and Design is to prepare diverse students of art and design to enrich our world through their creativity, skill, and vision”, says Venturini.

Being able to connect to the larger artistic community is a necessary quality of any art education, and having a bridge for those disciplines further cultivates the exchange of ideas. The advantage of online learning gives students a facilitated virtual classroom experience, with increased accessibility to a wide range of artists. Being in contact with peers all around the world provides online students with a much more globally informed and nuanced critique of their work.

Integrating the online option has challenged Otis College to come up with creative ways to approach instruction. Since both students and instructors come from different skill levels, one challenge is to adapt the tools to match their technological fluency. Venturini recalls an assignment for an Art and Design Fundamentals course, which required recording online asynchronous Life Drawing. The set-up involved coordinating multiple cameras to capture both the model and drawing, so students could follow along simultaneously.

According to Venturini, the appeal of a digital learning environment such as Kannu is its ability to capture and connect new audiences in novel ways. This groundbreaking experiment produced a positive response and exemplary work from students.

Despite the fast-paced nature of technology, instructors don’t need to feel intimidated by these new educational tools. They are designed with instructors in mind, featuring functional design and a step-by-step guide that shows them how to build their courses. Though tech can greatly enhance a curriculum, it’s up to the teachers to determine how it improves the instruction of their course.

“Think about your student outcomes—what do you want students to learn? And go from there.” She says. “I think instructors often feel pressured to use a lot of technology and forget that this should be a secondary concern to the learning outcomes. Start slowly and then add additional components or activities as you develop the course.”

Our team of education technology experts have helped institutions all over the world build online learning strategies and launch digital platforms. From education startups to university classrooms to employee training programs, every learning experience is unique—the perfect solution for one person might not be the right fit for another. How can you most efficiently narrow the options and find the best platform for your needs?

Here are five steps to help you prepare for your LMS search to make the process as painless, focused, and efficient as possible.

1. Do some pre-research research

I know, this sounds like a terrible idea—more research? But it’s worth the time and effort, especially if you’re new to the world of learning management systems and digital education tools. Before you start looking at specific products, spend a bit of time familiarizing yourself with the world of online learning. Check out some of the online strategies other schools or business are implementing, and learn the common vocabulary and acronyms in the industry (LMS, MOOC, SIS, etc). Having this knowledge in your back pocket will help you navigate the education technology marketplace and cut straight to the tools that are most relevant to you.

2. Iron out the basics

Truthfully speaking, there is no universally “perfect” LMS. But there are platforms out there that can be the perfect fit for you. So before you start shopping (and Googling), take some time to analyze your primary goals for using a learning management system. To help you get started, ask yourself the following questions:

• What is the primary purpose of this platform (ie. delivering course content, connecting students, managing grading, selling courses)? If you are transitioning from another LMS, what are your main motivations for doing so?
• What is your budget (and your capacity for upkeep)? In answering this question, it’s important to consider that the price of a solution is often linked to how involved you and your team want to be (or don’t want to be) with ongoing maintenance and system upkeep. Completely free LMS solutions do exist, but they require entire teams of experts to install, update, and maintain. Other LMS providers may offer a range of solutions with ongoing maintenance, consultation and support packages for a monthly fee or price per user.
• How many users will be on the platform? Many LMS’s base their pricing on active users, so it’s helpful to have an estimate of these numbers.
• What is your timeline/roll-out plan? Consider how soon you want to be up and running with your new LMS. It’s important to remember that building content and courses takes time (especially if you’re starting from scratch), so we recommend leaving a buffer of at least a month or two to get everything readybefore officially launching your online programs. If you’re looking for extra help with content creation as you move into the online space, you might also consider hiring an instructional design or online course production team.

3. Identify key features

Based on your goals outlined above, make a list of core features your ideal LMS needs to have. What features are crucial to the success of your online program? While it’s important to identify key features before embarking on an LMS search, being too specific and rigid in this area can make it very difficult to find a solution. We recommend prioritizing the features on your list as “critical” or  “nice-to-have” to help you focus your search while staying open to a variety of solutions.

4. Know your core needs

It’s easy to get sucked into thinking exclusively about features and platform functionality, but there are other important considerations when choosing an LMS. For example, not all LMS providers offer customer support. Are you tech savvy enough to troubleshoot on your own, or would you feel more comfortable with a dedicated support contact? Do you have a team of instructors that all need training and onboarding into your new LMS?

5. Keep an open mind

With your goal analysis and list building complete, it’s time to launch your LMS search. While it’s important to stick to your goals, we recommend approaching this stage with an open mind and willingness to learn. For example, you may discover an LMS that doesn’t provide a specific feature on your list, but instead has a different tool that allows you accomplish the same task. Being open to new approaches and features will help keep your search interesting and may lead you toward novel solutions you might not have considered otherwise.

Following these steps will make your search efficient and focused, help you know exactly what to ask for when speaking with vendors, and—most importantly—help you find the best LMS for your needs. Good luck!

The Kannu LMS is a full-featured learning management system that is modern, beautiful, and user friendly. Learn more and contact our team for a demo here. 

The music school’s mission takes direction from the legacy of its late founder, Maestro Ali Akbar Khan. A master sarode musician, his years of experience and teachings have been passed on to the primary instructors at the college. Establishing schools in three locations, Maestro Khan wanted to establish a school that offered beginner to professional level classes in North Indian classical music. While the college’s specialties are sarode, sitar, and tabla, students can also learn vocal techniques and specialize in an Indian or non-Indian instrument, including guitar, flute, cello, and violin.  

Mary Khan, Director and Library Manager, describes how the availability of modern classroom and content delivery technology opened new doors for the school’s burgeoning curriculum. After the passing of Maestro Ali Akbar in 2009, their expansion to live webinars was part of their first steps to modernize their program by integrating digital educational tools.

“As the world becomes more expensive, and learning becomes seemingly impossible to fit into our daily lives, having the ability to come home from work and turn on your computer to access classes will be more and more tempting,” says Khan. “For us at AACM, filling that niche with world class music lessons is fantastic.”

One of the issues that come with being a small, specialized music school is that there are many interested students who might not have the means to attend, and receive music classes in such a traditional setting. Opening their program to an online audience opens this niche and rare opportunity to students around the world.

Ali Akbar’s student body is comprised of aspiring professionals as well as hobbyists says Khan, with approximately a third of the college’s students being online. Classes are hosted on the Kannu LMS, where students view lesson videos, notation, and review materials. Since their introduction, the webinars have been an immediate success.

In transition to the new learning model, Khan ensured  the foundation of their traditional teaching style was not compromised. Streaming webinars are conducted in live group classes, and the camera’s perspective is that of a student. This innovative approach makes the online classroom experience as close to the live teaching model as possible.

“The model has not really changed over the last 50 years. Typically, the lessons begin with exercises, then the teacher composes material on the spot, and the students learn the music orally, line by line. Written notation is not created until after the class has been taught.”

“We are all very surprised with the effectiveness of the webinars,” says Khan. We have a wonderful streaming program that has beautiful video and rich audio which helps tremendously. Instead of feeling cold and technical the students feel connected to their teachers.”

The achievements brought by the Ali Akbar College’s webinars reinforce the idea that online courses can result in a learning environment that’s more closely connected, shattering the misconception of technology being impersonal. Khan believes that it just takes the right equipment to create online programs for music colleges and enhance the wider educational experience. Music education can enrich a student’s life in ways other disciplines can’t, and advanced digital tools only accelerate that process. This comes with the recognition that technology in itself isn’t a barrier, but can be key to facilitating successful arts programs.

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In previous articles, we discussed using demos and animations to spice up online course content and make it more interactive for learners. Visual aids such as these can help explain difficult concepts, create mental images and trigger memories, and motivate and engage students.

In this post, we’ll turn to something you can do to increase interactivity in your online course with very little effort: in-video quizzes.

If you’re not familiar with this feature, here’s how it works: a student pushes play on one of your lecture videos, watches for a while, the video automatically pauses at a particular point, and a window pops up with a quiz question. The student answers the question, then the video continues to play. In-video quizzes are a great way to help your students practice new concepts and feel more engaged in your course. A typical question is shown here:

Here are five tips for different ways to use in-video quizzes in your online course to help create active learning experiences for your students:

1. Use media

One of the best parts about video-embedded quiz questions is the ability to make them multimedia rich. Consider embedding images and diagrams and crafting questions around those. You can even embed video directly into your quiz question (making it a “video-in-video” quiz!) allowing you to seamlessly integrate external materials.

2. Create stress-free practice tests

In-video quiz questions are a great way to encourage students to practice for tests. If the student answers the question incorrectly, they are prompted to try again. As you are creating the in-video quiz, you also have the option of adding answer explanations and additional information for the student. This gets displayed after they answer the question.

3. Don’t just ask questions, ask students to DO things

A great way to use this tool is to teach your students a new concept, and then have them try it out by answering a task-based in-video quiz.

Requiring the student to do some actual work, research, or experimentation on their own in order to answer an embedded quiz question is a great way to engage them and help them retain their new knowledge. Here’s an example by Chandler McWilliams from the Kadenze course, “Introduction to Programming for the Visual Arts with p5.js.”  As you can see, it requires the student to modify some code, and report back if it worked or not.

4. Use links and encourage self-assessment

Because in-video quizzes provide students with immediate feedback, they can be an excellent tool to check understanding of a particular subject area. Consider using in-video quizzes to check in with your students and encourage self-assessment: ask your students how well they feel they know a particular topic, and use hyperlinks to provide an easy way for them to revisit certain topics. For example, “by now you should be able to count backwards from 96 by increments of 7 without pausing. Still struggling? Click these links to review this topic before next week’s exam.”

5. Use humor

When in doubt, make a joke! Sometimes, there are topics or questions that aren’t easily augmented with additional media. One thing I and others find useful to keep students engaged in these situations is to inject some humor into the question and/or answers. I even have used a running thread of bogus answers, that when pieced together send a secret message to any student who figures out that it’s there. Here are two such questions, one from my Physics-Based DSP course, and one from Rebecca Fiebrink’s Music Machine Learning course.

The Kannu LMS lets you embed multimedia quizzes into your lecture videos in just a few easy steps: enter the timecode (e.g. 00:35) for when you want your quiz to appear, click Add Question’, type your question and add media, and you’re done! Not already a Kannu user? Learn More!

No matter how strong your course is, one of the biggest challenges of online learning can be keeping students engaged. As instructors using digital learning technology, either for fully online or blended learning classrooms, we work hard to design curricula and materials that keep students interested and maximize learning. But course content isn’t the only factor in student engagement when it comes to online learning. What good is an amazing online course if no one logs in to view it?

One of the simplest ways to keep students engaged in your online course is by sending announcements. Depending on how you organize and structure your announcements, they can serve as powerful reminders for students to login to the platform, engage with one another, complete assignments, and give feedback. Here are some of our top tips to help you maximize the effectiveness of your announcements:

1. Send Announcements In-App and by Email

Announcements typically show up as notifications to the students when they log in to their online learning platform, but also can be sent out as emails, reaching students more readily, and acting as potent reminders. We recommend always emailing class announcements in addition to posting them in-app to make sure they reach everyone regardless of whether they log in regularly. Your emailed announcements will encourage students to log in and continue engaging with the course material!

2. Schedule Schedule Schedule

Announcements can go out immediately once you publish them or they can be scheduled for the future. Scheduling announcements has the advantage of allowing you to pick a time and date that works best for reaching your students. For example, if you find that students are less engaged over the weekends and nights, you can schedule messages to go out first thing in the morning Monday to Friday, when they’re more likely to be on their computers and checking email.

Scheduling announcements also allows you to pre-write messages to your students all at once and schedule them to release over the course of a week or month—this is the secret to efficiency with this tool!

3. Include Media

Include images and links in your announcements. Your links could be to external resources or they could simply redirect to specific areas within your course that you want students to visit. Providing links directly within your announcements removes the guesswork for your students: a reminder to complete an assignment is much more effective if the student can click through and immediately access the instructions!

4. Be Creative

In the age of digital learning, an announcement can be much more than a simple news blast—it can prompt discussion and sharing, bring people together, and help your students stay organized and on top of their work. We asked a few of our power users on Kannu to share how they put announcements to use to boost engagement and participation, to give you some ideas of how to get started:

• Homework reminders: instead of just reminding students of an upcoming due date, schedule multiple announcements leading up to the due date to help them achieve specific milestones along the way.
• Special events/extra help sessions: do you have a wonderful guest speaker coming to campus or extra tutoring sessions to help students prepare for exams? Schedule a few reminders leading up to the event, including one on the day of the event, an hour or so before starting. Include a photo or video in the announcement to generate excitement and catch attention.
• Discussion prompts: one of the best parts about digital learning is that conversations can happen anytime, anywhere. Schedule announcements to go out every week or two to encourage students to engage in forums, discussions and to provide feedback or critique one another. Even better, include a discussion prompt or question in the announcement and a link to the forum thread to kick things off!
• Lecture recaps and preparation: keep students engaged in between classes by sending out announcements to recap the lecture, offer extra resources to deepen their knowledge of a topic, or to get ahead for the upcoming class. Don’t forget that you can embed media directly into announcements on Kannu, making everything streamlined for your students!

The Kannu LMS lets you send scheduled announcements and more. Not already a Kannu user? Learn More!

Thank you for joining us in our mission to make digital learning better for the whole world!

Love,

The Kannu Team

To learn more about Kannu and what it can do visit kannu.com.

The Capterra “Best” awards are determined by the subjective opinions of individual end-user customers based on their own experiences, the number and timing of published reviews on Gartner’s digital sites (Capterra.com, SoftwareAdvice.com, and GetApp.com) and review ratings for a given product in the category and are not intended in any way to represent the views of Gartner or its affiliates.

Creating active learning experiences is one of the most important parts of teaching online. It’s up to course creators to deliver content that is not only informative but engages the learner in a meaningful way. But where do we start?

In this article, we talked about using demos to make online courses more interesting and engaging. We looked at a few creative ways to demonstrate things that might not at first seem to lend to physical manifestations. We also talked about using analogies to create demos, and the importance of demos for difficult concepts that students have trouble grasping or remembering. This time we’ll talk about using animations created by computer code to give more punch to online lectures and course materials.

Of course, for teaching visual art, code-generated figures and animations can be really instructive, aiding learning and engagement. Topics range from color theory, to perspective, or lighting and shading, and many other concepts and techniques. Here I show a simple program in P5.js (Processing) that demonstrates perspective drawing, with a vanishing point that tracks the user’s mouse. The block figures are updated and drawn in real time.

But using code-generated animations is not only useful in teaching visual art. This shows me demoing oscillation using a mass and string (forming a pendulum) for my Physics-Based Sound Synthesis Course.

In addition to the physical demo using a string and a colorful juggling ball as a mass, I also created a short program (in the Java-like Processing Language) to implement, solve, and animate the physics of the simple pendulum in real time.

As the simulation runs, simple key strokes can be used to change the force due to gravity (something that would never be possible to demonstrate in a live classroom demo), the length of the string, and the mass of the ball. The computer-generated animation further enhances the student’s learning experience in a way not otherwise possible with practical demos by tracing the motion of the swinging pendulum on the screen as time progresses. The motion and resulting graph demonstrates that the simple pendulum obeys a sine wave oscillation.

Going further in my course development of sine waves in the real world, I also wrote and provided code that animated the oscillations of a mass/spring system.  And there is additional code that shows how a point on a spinning circle also sweeps out a sine wave.  

Even though I teach the Physics-Based Sound Synthesis course using the ChucK Programming Language, and the course references a book with code examples in C++, the code I provide for the animations/demos in my lectures is in Processing, and not in ChucK (which is designed for sound and music rather than graphics). This Macaronic-Style approach to using many computer languages for code examples is common in my teaching, because I feel that students in the modern music technology world need to be comfortable with a variety of tools and tricks. In fact, some of my assignments use a combination of ChucK, Processing, and GL (C++).

That being said, in order to start using animations and code-generated figures in your teaching you don’t have to know all of those languages—nor do you have be a computer science whiz. You really only need one, and I’d recommend the P5.js Language (Processing for browsers). P5.js  runs in any browser, and there are literally thousands of examples available online that you can use as a starting point. For a good kickstart to using these artistic graphic/animation languages, I’d recommend either this introductory P5.js Course, or Dan Shiffman’s wonderful “Nature of Code” course (or both!).

Tips for Adding Compelling Code-Generated Animations to Your Online Courses:

• Find things that lend naturally to animations or graphics. Remember that there are thousands of Processing/P5.js examples available online. Do a web search first and you might find examples that you can modify to get what you want.
• Find concepts that students have trouble understanding. Think creatively about how to make animations for those.
• Analogies are good too. If you can’t think of an animation, try to think of a parallel concept or phenomenon. Think “this is like that,” then make an animation of that.
• Depending on the subject you’re teaching, you might integrate some of the animation code into your course assignments. Encourage students to start with the code you provide and make small changes. It’s a great way to learn both the subject, and get an introduction to programming.
• Above all, be creative!!

Instead of the traditional classroom setup consisting of the instructor at the helm and the students around them (one-to-many, or 1-to-N), the N2N Learning Space consists of individual work stations set up in a circle (many-to-many, N-to-N). Each student station has a large-scale digital display that students can plug their laptops into. This configuration gives each student visual and aural access to the activities of all of their peers. The N2N setup was designed to augment peer interaction, increase productivity and experimentation, and to facilitate student sharing of projects.

Writing code, designing CAD drawings, working in Photoshop, or any other type of “computer” assignment is typically a private experience . When these same projects were displayed on the N2N’s large-scale monitors, students could help troubleshoot their peers’ efforts and self-assess their own progress in the course.

From N2N Learning Space to Digital Student Gallery

As innovative as the N2N Learning Space is, there are also drawbacks to this model: individual monitor stations for each student can be expensive to install and maintain, and placing each student in front of a computer can distract from valuable face-to-face class time. Inspired by the potential for collaborative learning and feedback provided by the N2N Learning Space, we built an online student gallery space inside of Kannu.

The Galleries (which can be course-specific or global for the entire platform) achieve a similar learning model by having students submit work and engage in discussions entirely online—from the comfort of their school library, home, uber ride, or coffee shop. The Kannu student galleries are designed to leverage all positive aspects of N2N learning (peer-to-peer interaction, feedback, and sharing) while simultaneously resolving the other drawbacks by moving online. Students can engage with materials at their own pace, give and receive feedback from their personal devices and even continue their discussions outside of class.

Learn more about the Galleries on Kannu and other collaborative tools here. 

Creating Active Learning Experiences with Entertaining, Thought-Provoking Demos

My favorite physics teacher would regularly show up to class with some prop (a bowling ball, a bucket of sand, a long piece of pipe, other things odd and interesting). He’d use those to demonstrate the topic we were covering. For example, a bowling ball demonstrates mass and density, low rolling friction (on a hard polished surface), and other physical properties.

One of my calculus teachers brought a sheet of cloth into class one day. She had students hold it up to the blackboard where an arbitrarily wiggly enclosed shape had been drawn. She traced the shape on the cloth, and had a student cut it out with scissors. She had another student cut out one square inch of cloth. Using a balance scale borrowed from the Chemistry department, she had students carefully weigh the square inch, then we weighed the curvy cloth segment. We all divided the wiggly cloth weight by the square inch weight. É Voila! The area inside the wiggly curve in square inches had been calculated by a really innovative method. We went on to begin our introduction to Calculus Integrals.

You might not think that many of the topics you teach would yield to compelling demos. But the point of the calculus/sheet/weight demo above is: even topics that don’t seem to have an obvious demo capability might yield well to demos, if you’re creative about it. If you can incorporate demos into your video lectures and assignments, and encourage online students to do them at home, you’ve gone a long way toward including those students into your virtual (global) classroom.

As for my teaching, much of it is pretty demo-able. But I’m always thinking of new ways to make students think about what they’re learning. This shows me demoing oscillation using a mass and string (forming a pendulum) for my Physics-Based Sound Synthesis Course.

Tips for Adding Compelling Demos to Your Online Courses:

• Find things that lend naturally to demos, analogies, etc. Make demos for those.
• Find concepts that students have trouble understanding. Think creatively about how to make demos for those.
• Welcome your current and past students to help you think of means to create demos for these hard concepts.
• Analogies are good too. If you can’t think of a demo, try to think of a parallel concept or phenomenon. Think “this is like that,” then make a demo of that.
• Watch your videos and/or read the scripts for your lectures. Find stretches of time where there doesn’t seem to be as much action or movement. Figure out a way to put a demo in the middle of that slower part.
• Above all, be creative!!  

Specializing in advertising and design, Portfolio Studio is one of the best places for students to develop the skills they need. Offering courses in copywriting, marketing, and of course portfolio building, the company allows students to become well-versed in specialties every creative should have. Portfolio Studio’s customized programs cater to the unique skillsets of each student. All classes are taught and designed by industry professionals, ensuring that students get the expertise they need to stay up to date on the latest standards.

For Gina Greco, co-founder and director of Portfolio Studio, the goal was to create a productive learning environment that enriched the student experience. The motive isn’t necessarily to replicate the traditional classroom experience, but ensure quality without sacrificing the human factor.

“Our learners don’t want to go back for a 4-year degree and are looking for the customized training they can find at Portfolio Studio,” says Greco.

The interface of Kannu aligns well with the visual nature of Portfolio Studio’s online classrooms. Students use the gallery to comment on each other’s work and share images, articles, links, and other resources. Unlike many MOOCs, the small class sizes (usually six students) are integral to the collaborative nature of the programs, encouraging diverse, well-rounded discussion.

“Kannu’s galleries and forums work well for creatives who can share work with each other,” says Greco. “This allows for the type of feedback that is needed to progress. Our students learn from doing, and doing again and again.”

This model of repetition and refinement is especially appropriate for their students who are seeking creative career paths, such as a copywriter, designer or creative strategist. Many of them are adults who’ve just completed college or are otherwise in the entry-level phase of their careers. At Portfolio Studio, they can build targeted portfolios without the additional hassle and financial burden of spending several semesters on a physical campus again.

Designing a successful online curriculum is no easy task. Removing the physical and time constraints may be convenient, but comes with its own hurdles.

Greco’s experience in a variety of education settings has confronted her with the challenges of adapting creative courses online, acknowledging that there is no “one size fits all” solution. While much of online learning involves independent work, students engage better when course content is facilitated. Because of the subjective nature and lack of a typical grading criteria for such courses, accessibility to instructors is essential to the success of a program.

“Kannu lets an instructor reach out directly to a student with feedback”, she explains. “That works well for our teaching model. A few of our instructors provide video feedback which is an unusual, but effective approach. The challenge is finding the optimal balance between the flexibility of self-directed learning and instructor contact.”

Since online education is relatively new, there is still a wide margin of improvement. Greco anticipates that features such as virtual reality and gamification could help further engagement, and may be potentially implemented in future online education models.

For instructors new to teaching online, Greco advises them to consider the extent of designing and developing a course. A common tendency for many instructors is to underestimate the time required to see a course to its completion, so she recommends creating content one module at a time, and being open to changes that might occur in the future.

An efficient learning management system eases the technical burden on instructors when they’re overseeing a course’s creation and continuous development. Regardless of what new technologies are employed, Greco asserts that the best type of content is instructor-created. This way, the focus remains on how well students are responding and benefiting from the curriculum. The successes of Portfolio Studio’s unconventional and personalized approach is testament to the rewards and growing potential of innovative online education.