Canvas: Monetizing Student Data?

I won't have time to write more about this until next week, but if what Phil Hill has reported about Instructure's latest plans is true, it changes everything about Canvas. My strongly negative opinion about this new development is not welcome at Canvas Community, but I will be free to blog about it here. It's one thing to despair about the limitations and downsides of the LMS as it affects individual teachers and students (as I do), but this is something new, and far worse. So, more to come, but for now, I hope everybody who has an interest in the future of Canvas will take a few minutes to read Phil's important post: Instructure: Plans to expand beyond Canvas LMS into machine learning and AI.

ICYMI: @PhilOnEdTech on Instructure's plans to monetize student data with new AI/machine-learning schemes. TurnItIn has massively profited from reusing student data that schools are supplying; is Canvas going the same way? IMO: it's alarminghttps://t.co/dicpmUzeFX @hypervisible pic.twitter.com/pyS3xvGIY6

— Laura Gibbs (@OnlineCrsLady) March 15, 2019

Twitter4Canvas

I got a fun message in my Twitter4Canvas box: a new Canvas training project with its own Twitter account, and the Twitter embedded in a Canvas course. Here is the Twitter account: VCCCD CanvasTraining.

And here's a screenshot of the Twitter embedded in a Canvas Page:

Figuring out how to get Twitter feeds inside Canvas using only Canvas resources is one of the best hacks I learned about by hanging out at Canvas Community. It's a hack that works anywhere that iframe is allowed but javascript is prohibited, like in Canvas Pages. If you're curious, you can find all the step-by-step instructions here: Twitter4Canvas Step by Step.

I have to say, though, it is nice to be back here in the real blog world where I can just paste Twitter widgets in the sidebar of the blog without going through the extra steps to hide the javascript elsewhere which you have to do in Canvas Pages. :-)