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

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.

New Project View

More Customization

Privacy Controls

You can optionally enable commenting on your projects, so you can bring in collaborators and peers to get feedback on your work or process. You’ll have control over this as well!

Linking and Embedding

We’re Just Getting Started

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.

Today, we’re happy to introduce our site-wide Gallery, which allows to you browse the student work from any course on the platform! The Gallery is home to all types of student-submitted content, including images, videos, music, text, and code. You can scroll through thumbnail previews of all course submissions, or refine your search to sort by course name and subject. It’s also a great way to discover new courses. 

Feel free to ‘Like’ posts, post comments, generate discussions, and collaborate on projects on and offline. Whenever a coursework is submitted, it’ll automatically be featured in the site-wide Gallery.  (Note: you can control your privacy settings when you submit your work.) See something that you’re particularly fond of? Share it on social media! Now your friends can join in on the discussion, even if they’re not enrolled in the course.

The site-wide Gallery can be enabled by admins in any Kannu portal—activate yours today! 

As one of the youngest products on the list, we’re beyond thrilled to be rated among the top scoring LMSs out there. So what’s next for Kannu? Well, we’re going to keep doing what we know best—connecting people through digital learning experiences. To learn more about Kannu and everything it can do, head over to kannu.com.

The content for the FrontRunners quadrant is derived from actual end-user reviews and ratings as well as vendor-supplied and publicly available product and company information that gets applied against a documented methodology; the results neither represent the views of, nor constitute an endorsement by, Gartner or any of its affiliates.

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

Messenger

The Messenger lets you share media/file uploads, start conversations with anyone in your Kannu portal, and even make group chats, so you can form study groups, workshop projects, or just hang out. Details & help documentation are here, or you could go try it out!

Gallery Upgrades

We’re opening the galleries up: When you share your work on social channels like Facebook and Twitter, your friends can now see and comment directly in the Gallery, even if they aren’t enrolled in the course. Same goes for you, of course. Plus, we’ve made updates to make sure sharing from the Gallery is easy and seamless, and any playback media (like audio and video) will embed and play directly on social media.

Single Sign-On

One less password to remember! If you’re setting up a new account, you can just connect via Google, Facebook, or Github. Single Sign-On can be configured by Kannu admins for any Kannu portal. See how to set it up here. 

Today we’re thrilled to announce an all new Course Gallery—one that we hope will encourage new meaningful discussions, and allow you to communicate, collaborate, and inspire one another.

We’ve completely reimagined the visual design to place your work at the center of attention. Browsing, sorting, filtering, and searching have been revamped for easy navigation, too. You can add titles and descriptions to your work, and our new side-by-side viewer lets you view and comment at the same time.

We want you to show off a little. Sharing your submissions online, anywhere, is now just a single click away. Plus, now you can view the gallery of any course, with no enrollment necessary. Check out some featured students below to see the new gallery viewer in action.

Visual Art — Anna Medvedeva

Music — Anton Vasiliadis

Code — Machiel Veltkamp

But with the shift in the American political climate, it is more clear than ever that we must figure out a solution to the rising cost of education. This doesn’t just fall on colleges and universities, nor is it a responsibility that we can just expect the government to take on. Innovative businesses are crucial.

I was invited by the White House to their Education Summit in November, about a week after the election. Even though the administration is about to undergo some major changes, there was and remains tremendous positivity for the future. Online education is an industry that’s still finding its place in the world, and that’s exciting.

At the summit, we spoke at length about improving the quality of—and access to—online education. Looking at the numbers, it’s clear that we as a society still have much work to do on making paths for veterans, low-income families, people with disabilities, and those reentering from the prison system.

One of the big avenues for this in online education has been coding. Bootcamps like General Assembly are a huge part, and EdX and Coursera have successful and effective computer engineering courses. But the fully capable student has training and education in the liberal arts. Innovation doesn’t come from learning JavaScript, but from learning to imagine, design, and invent. It comes from taking on projects, doing critique and iteration.

This is more than walking around shouting “STEAM!” It takes real action, and new ways of thinking. We all know there’s a disconnect between education and industry, and both sides of that equation must be willing to innovate to nurture talent & passion.

The MOOC movement, in the last year or so, has finally sparked some of this innovation to see how higher education will work in the future. For instance, IDEO is running an important design challenge to see and support the changing landscape, which I strongly encourage everyone to participate in. It’s time for startups like ours to make the voices of our students heard.

And now to the new year. We built partnerships with incredible schools and businesses last year, and we’ll be seeing the results of that throughout 2017. New courses and Programs will expand our catalog even further into animation, design, creative technology, and music. There will be some serious new features for the site as well to make it easier to communicate with fellow learners and develop your skills. More on that later. Keep on learning, everyone.

-Ajay

LOS ANGELES, CA – November 19, 2015 –  Kadenze, Inc. today announced the launch of Kannu, the first Learning Management System (LMS) that is purpose-built for the media-rich content of arts and creative technology education. Kadenze, Inc. built Kannu to address a significant need for this type of LMS as there is currently no other LMS built specifically to handle the robust content required for the arts.

Leading universities, institutions and nonprofits including California Institute of the Arts, CalArts Community Arts Partnership, Goldsmiths University of London, OTIS College of Art and Design, Rhode Island School of Design, CalArts Access, Real Industry, Stanford University; Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics (CCRMA), and Ali Akbar College of Music have all been early adopters of Kannu. Many of these institutions have been using the customized virtual learning environment for registered students on campus for one full year.

Kannu was designed for educators, by educators to simplify classroom management, empower teachers and students, and enhance the education process by providing all the tools needed to teach, create, assess, and communicate in one place. It’s capabilities support all existing media file types across portfolios, quizzes, gradebook, and comments/suggestions and is highly interactive between students and teachers. Kannu’s user-centric design and intuitive interface fulfills the LMS needs of universities, faculty, and students alike.

“Kannu is adding a dimension to online learning, and creating a space for both faculty and students to engage in a way that hasn’t been done before,” said Chris Chafe, Director of CCRMA at Stanford University. “The ability to interact in a media-heavy and capable platform, such as Kannu, has been instrumental for us to bring the traditional classroom experience to life for online students.”

Key benefits for universities, faculty, and students:

• Universities:
  • Custom design: Every school gets a custom designed Kannu experience, with its own colors, branding, and language.
  • Affordable and flexible pricing model that fits the size of each institution
  • Custom SIS integration: helps administrators integrate course, user, and enrollment data
  • Timely user support to assist with any troubleshooting needs
  • Can track overall student performance and oversee course catalogue
• Instructors:
  • Easy to use platform that helps teachers seamlessly navigate between students or assignments when grading
  • Can track analytics including: student engagement, attendance, forum activity, what assignments students are submitting, etc.
• Students:
  • Encourages collaboration and student engagement by asking questions, sharing resources, viewing work from classmates, participating in forum discussions
  • Interact directly with instructor or teaching assistant
  • Ability to track grades and progress, view lecture notes/slides, submit assignments, take quizzes/tests, manage deadlines
  • OS-agnostic: Fully responsive across web and mobile platforms, including Windows and Android
  • Public facing online portfolio

Kannu powers Kadenze’s global online classroom, which currently serves more than ten thousand students from across the globe, daily.

“In order to accomplish what we hoped to with Kadenze, we needed a learning management system that could handle the robust and changing content of arts and creative technology education online, which didn’t exist ,” said Dr. Ajay Kapur, Ph.D, CEO and co-founder of Kadenze Inc. “With Kannu, we’re able to efficiently communicate, share, and grade with an LMS that’s purpose-built for this type of education.”

Kannu’s platform is a customizable solution that goes beyond just higher ed.  Other use cases include K-12 , or businesses and nonprofits, and can be used for small to large groups.  It’s flexible pricing model has enabled nonprofit Ali Akbar College of Music and Media Business Education Non-Profit, Real Industry to use the platform.

About Kadenze, Inc.

Kadenze, Inc. is an education technology company built to address the needs of students and faculty in the arts and creative technology. Kadenze delivers a first-of-its kind creative arts education, providing access to the highest quality online interactive courses and an engaged network of schools, instructors, and students.

Founded in 2013 by Ajay Kapur, Ph.D., Perry Cook, Ph.D., Jordan Hochenbaum, Ph.D, Owen Vallis, Ph.D., and Ashok Ahuja, Kadenze and its supporting technologies are the product of extensive academic experience and research.

Kadenze was conceived by passionate arts and creative technology educators Ajay Kapur and Perry R. Cook. In 2012, they were awarded a National Science Foundation grant to study methods of teaching computer science to non-programmers, specifically art students. Using available online learning platforms, they offered a course that garnered 45,000 enrolled students. This process made it clear to them that there are limited options for these types of courses, and serious challenges involved in effectively measuring students’ work.

The founding and executive team is augmented by others with deep experience in arts technology education, machine learning, and with business and serial entrepreneurial expertise.

To learn more, visit www.kadenze.com and follow us on Twitter @KadenzeOfficial.

Kadenze® and Kannu are trademarks of Kadenze, Inc.