Education technology company Instructure has unveiled innovative new products and formed a strategic partnership to combine its leading learning management system, Canvas, with Khan Academy’s AI-powered student tutor and teaching assistant Khanmigo.
Instructure, an education technology company dedicated to elevating student success, amplifying the power of teaching and inspiring people to learn together, has announced new strategic product innovations and a partnership bringing together its market-leading learning management system, Canvas, and Khan Academy’s AI-powered student tutor and teaching assistant Khanmigo.
Revealing the product innovations, the organization said its enhancements to the Instructure learning platform are centered around four strategic areas with AI infused thoughtfully throughout; core teaching and learning, advanced analytics, lifelong learning and platform integration.
This was unveiled during InstructureCon the company’s annual user conference where the organization’s leaders shared Instructure’s on-going commitment to innovation in edtech and their mission to ease teachers’ work and improve student success.
- Core teaching and learning
To better support millions of educators and learners using Canvas around the world, Instructure showcased continued innovation to their core teaching and learning solutions, all designed to save educators time, personalize learning experiences for students and simplify complex tasks for administrators. An AI-assisted course templating was announced, giving educators and instructional designers the power to quickly create elegant page layouts using dynamic methods hence making courses engaging and intuitive.
The new release which will be available in beta, adds to other functionalities designed to improve educator efficiency and reduce administrative tasks like bulk publishing for modules, enhanced gradebook filters, course pacing and the ability to submit assignments on behalf of students.
Students will also gain a more personalized experience from Canvas solutions with tailored support. For example, the beta AI-powered right-and-wrong answer rationale and an integration of AI writing tutor Khanmigo. This will be made available through the new partnership with Khan Academy.
These tools give instructors supplemental AI-powered tools to support students in and out of the classroom.
“This work underscores our continued commitment to build the extensibility and advanced capabilities of Canvas products while also promoting simplicity for both educators and learners,” said Shiren Vijiasingam, Instructure’s Chief Product Officer.
- Advanced analytics
Building upon the rapid adoption of the new data pipeline for Canvas Data 2 and the recently released Canvas Admin Analytics included in Canvas LMS, Instructure also showcased new advanced analytics solutions which are currently available in beta. This allows administrators to personalize the way they see and interact with their data in a fraction of the time.
Injecting Conversational AI into Instructure analytics products empowers educators to ask deeper and more contextual questions using everyday language.
- Lifelong learning
In response to rapidly evolving labor markets and growing demand for alternate educational paths, Instructure’s comprehensive offerings of Canvas LMS, Canvas Credentials and Canvas Catalog provide institutions with a turnkey solution to diversify course offerings, attract new learners and drive continued institutional growth.
As an evolution of this offering, the company previewed innovative work in credentialing and learner records. This learner passport is designed to empower learners to carry stackable and verifiable evidence of the competencies acquired throughout their learning journey.
“We believe the future requires a portable and shareable record to show the skills and achievements an individual mastered with either employers or institutions,” Vijiasingam said, adding that the organizations acknowledges that learners are looking for alternative paths to employment and education and this gives them the power to pursue their own unique learning journeys.
- Platform integration
To realize the company’s mission of delivering the most comprehensive and seamless learning platform on the market, Instructure showcased a new integration between Canvas LMS and assessment management system Mastery Connect. This will produce a seamless learning experience across Canvas LMS, Canvas Catalog and Canvas Credentials.
This cohesive platform experience is strengthened by a foundation of data powered by advanced analytics. As part of the platform, the Instructure Community which prides itself as edtech’s largest online community, now accesses PandaBot, an AI-powered chatbot available to all community members.
“Whether educators and learners are using Instructure products or other educational technologies on the Instructure Learning Platform, they deserve an experience that puts teaching and learning at the center,” said Steve Daly, Instructure’s Chief Executive Officer.
“Removing the barriers between these solutions allows everyone to navigate freely so they can focus on the content of their education and not the tech. Today we shared our vision of what a cohesive platform experience could and should look like and our strategy to get there.”
Khanmigo, Khan Academy’s AI-powered teaching assistant
Khan Academy is a non-profit organization with the mission of providing free and world-class education for everyone across the world. Khan’s platforms include more than 70,000 practice problems, videos and articles that cover a range of pre-K-14 subjects.
In a bid to save educators’ time with AI-powered lesson planning, grading tools and improved student writing outcomes, Instructure and Khan Academy announced their partnership which brings together Instructure’s market-leading learning management system, Canvas and Khan Academy’s AI-powered student tutor and teaching assistant, Khanmigo.
This integrated solution aims to put the transformative power of Generative AI into the hands of students and educators using the Canvas learning environment.
Generative AI represents an opportunity to enhance the role of technology in supporting educators and creating efficiencies in their day-to-day instruction. The new solution plans to harness this transformative moment by enabling educators with an integrated Khanmigo experience that supports human-driven, technology-enhanced essay feedback and grading, lesson planning and rubric creation.
This partnership is a step in delivering personalization for students and letting busy educators scale their excellence and impact in a short period of time.
For students, the use of Generative AI presents significant opportunities and challenges. In a world filled with intelligent agents and easily accessed answers, the need for tools that guide, enhance and support active learning is critical.
“Every educator we talk to is seeking ways to address students using ChatGPT to write school essays and do homework,” said Sal Khan, Founder and CEO of Khan Academy.
“How can classrooms use AI tools while ensuring students develop critical thinking skills? We’re teaming up with Instructure to solve this. We’re using AI to show teachers not just the final essay, but how the student got there. So students will be supported in developing critical writing and thinking skills while getting the benefit of AI designed for education.
“Khanmigo can also help with rubric creation and grading to save teachers’ time. Students won’t get answers, but they will get appropriate levels of support.”
The Instructure and Khan Academy partnership will bring Canvas and Khanmigo together for a cohort of K-12, Higher Ed design partners and early adopters in the 2024-2025 academic year. Institutions interested in piloting this solution can sign up at the Emerging AI Marketplace.
