Edcanvas is a website which I only recently came across. It is used to help students and teachers organise and present online content in one place. So, for example, let’s presume that you are starting a new topic or project in class and you are doing some research to gather your resources for the topic. Normally, your resources for the topic may be spread across various sources. You may have a Powerpoint in Dropbox, a Word file on your desktop, a PDF on a pen drive, a Youtube video favourited on the website, numerous links saved in your browser. Edcanvas allows you to gather all of these resources into one place and have them ready to present in class so that you have everything ready at your fingertips in one location.
Each time you are starting to gather resources for a new topic, you just need to start a new “Canvas”. You can also edit old canvasses and add new resources to them as you come across new material. Adding resources is very easy, just using a “drag and drop” method. There are icons that allow you to quickly access places where your resources may be stored – Dropbox, Google Drive, Youtube, Bookmarks etc.
The great thing about Edcanvas is that once you have created it, you can “run” or play the Canvas from within Edcanvas. Sharing a Canvas is also easy – it can be shared via email, to Edmodo, Twitter, Facebook or you can also embed the Canvas into a blog like I have done below. You can also browse Canvases created by other users and find out about resources that they have gathered for their projects/topics. One last thing about Edcanvas that may appeal to teachers is that you can create a class account where students can create their own canvases and see canvases created by others.
You can sign up for an Edcanvas account using your existing Google account, your Facebook account or just by using your email. Canvases are public by default but you can make them private in just two clicks – first by clicking on the Share button followed by the lock toggle.
Great idea and I’ll most certainly use it but not available in our school as it seems to be blocked. Is this the case for everyone?
Just discovered this is blocked at our filtering level! Submitting it for review…
It has been unblocked so should be available on all levels now.