LearnDash - The New WordPress LMS

I'm really looking forward to a new Premium Plugin for WordPress called LearnDash that essentially transforms your WordPress install into a Learning Management System. I've worked with many LMS"s over the years such as Blackboard, Moodle, Sakai, Angel, and Canvas. Each LMS has their pros and cons. The key to a good LMS is a very simple intuitive interface, excellent collaboration tools,  assignment managers, and a simple yet powerful Grade Book.  I'm looking forward to piloting the LearnDash Plugin on my own site as WordPress is my favorite CMS so being able to use it to teach a class would be awesome.  LearnDash features I'm looking forward to most are:

• Quizzes
• Communication Features
• Certificates
• Run Reports

Canvas LMS: Technology that facilitates good pedagogy

All LMS's (learning management systems) are not created equal. The design of the LMS must be done right to facilitate good pedagogy.  It needs to be easy enough for the  non tech person to use, yet it must do very sophisticated and complex things in the background to facilitate the learning process. I would also say that pairing a faculty member with an instructional designer/academic technologist at the onset, will yield the best courses possible.

The Canvas LMS does design right and consequently facilitates good pedagogy.  That is the key, because all LMS's say they do the same things, but Canvas does them right, which makes it a tool that improves, not hinders the learning process. Here are just a few reasons:

• Easy and efficient access to content, instructor, and students
• Content is easily mapped to learning outcomes by instructor 
• Assignments can be assessed using rubrics you can easily create in canvas (HTML5 anyone?)
• Canvas makes grading assignments very engaging and efficient. Instructors can leave feedback (text, audio, or video) in the rubric or as a side comment. Students can comment back seamlessly (text, audio, or video).
• You can easily pull learning outcomes into rubrics to ensure mastery of content

More to come in my next post...

Have you used Canvas yet? How would you compare it to other LMS's you have used?