Introduction: Sakai vs. Canvas

After a semester of piloting Canvas, I am (unwillingly) back to using Sakai. The Canvas experience was wonderful, both for me and for my students. From the first days of class, I received unsolicited feedback from my students telling me how much they loved Canvas (and how much they had hated Sakai). Personally I had never hated Sakai, but it did find it limiting and difficult to use.

I was not a novice user of Sakai - I was one of the first to use Sakai to teach an online class when my institution first began using Sakai. I've used it for several years, and have experimented with most of the features available in our version of Sakai. However, in many cases, after trying Sakai, I found easier ways to do the same things. Sharing slides and resources was easier through my own personal website. Grades were easier in Excel. Quizzes were easier in class. Messages were easier through email. The calendar... well, I found the Sakai calendar almost completely unusable.

So I went through phases - first trying features in Sakai, then slowly switching to other ways of doing things. Over time, though, I realized that it was inconvenient for my students to have to go to Sakai for their other classes, then to my website for my classes, then to their email for messages... So I reluctantly started shifting back to Sakai. It was frustrating, though, since in many cases "convenience for the student" meant a lot more work for me.

When I first piloted Canvas, then, it was like a breath of fresh air. It was better for the student, AND easier for me! The Calendar was a joy to work with; tests and quizzes a snap; assignments straightforward; the gradebook reliable. I honestly felt like I could be a more creative teacher, focusing on what I wanted to accomplish rather than on how to manage technology. My courses were better organized, my communication with students more thorough and more regular, my learning outcomes better documented. And in addition to all this, it was easier to use and reduced both my workload and my frustrations. So needless to say, I am not looking forward to giving up Canvas and returning to Sakai.