Top Tips: Everything you need to know about using the Canvas mobile apps

Gone are the days when textbooks and chalkboards ruled the classroom. Mobile devices are now a necessity in today’s learning, as both educators and students demand more flexible, accessible ways to teach and learn on the go.

That’s where our Canvas native mobile apps come in. Educators and learners can access their Canvas environment on their mobile device no matter where they are, allowing them to stay connected and engaged.

From easy installation to powerful features, here’s everything you need to know to make the most of the Canvas mobile apps for teaching and learning. 

Canvas mobile apps are easy to download and install.

Educators and learners can easily download the Canvas mobile apps with a single click for free. Both the Canvas Teacher and Canvas Student apps are available for iOS and Android users on the iOS App Store and Google Play.

The apps require iOS 16.0 or later and Android 8.0 or later. You can review the full requirements here. 

Canvas mobile apps are intuitive and user-friendly.

The Canvas Teacher and Canvas Student mobile apps take into account iOS’ and Android's UI and UX conventions. Educators and learners are used to their device’s specific operating system, and the apps make using Canvas LMS on their mobile phone an intuitive experience.

Course navigation within the apps is also intuitive and familiar. With a simple tap, educators and learners can access courses and groups. From the course Modules page, learners can easily participate in discussions, take quizzes, view pages, and open files. They can also submit assignments 'on the fly' from their device files, camera rolls, or most cloud-based mobile apps, including Dropbox, OneDrive, and Google Drive.

The apps are all WebAIM certified as substantially conformant with Level A and AA of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) version 2.1 and compatible with mobile-OS accessibility tools, such as voice-to-text in iOS and iPadOS and touch and gesture support.

Educators and learners can use the Canvas mobile apps to do a lot.

Learn more about the full features available for Canvas Teacher and Canvas Student.

The Canvas Teacher app optimizes grading, monitors student progress, and makes it easy to communicate with learners from a mobile device. Educators can easily create, edit, and view announcements, quizzes, and assignments, or update course content. They can also easily message students and provide video, audio, and annotated feedback.

With the Canvas Student app, meanwhile, learners can read course materials, take quizzes, participate in discussions, communicate with peers and teachers, keep track of to-do items with reminders and notifications, and submit assignments from the app. They can even open an assignment attachment, annotate it, and submit it for review and grading.

Canvas mobile apps have an offline mode.

The Canvas mobile apps offer offline functionality for a truly convenient and accessible experience for both educators and students. 

With offline mode, users can download and view coursework without an internet connection. Learners can download and sync course content to view as read-only when offline, while educators can download assignment submissions for offline grading. Any content changes made while they are offline will sync once they re-connect to the internet.

Note, however, that the offline mode is not automatically enabled by default. Canvas account administrators must enable or configure it for users to access materials offline.

They’re customizable!

Just like the Canvas browser experience, educators and learners can customize their Canvas experience in the mobile apps. Customizing course colors, adding course nicknames, and selecting a preferred app theme option is all easily available. 

You don’t need to worry about mandatory upgrades.

At Canvas, we don’t release mandatory upgrades, which would prevent anyone from accessing the application until the app was updated.

Instead, new mobile app versions are released as needed, meaning we don't strictly time our releases with the release of major operating system upgrades. Updates may be released weeks ahead of the next Android or iOS update, or days before. 

In both cases, the Canvas mobile apps will have been updated to address most of the issues that users could face as a result of an Android or iOS update. Canvas users never have to worry about a time lag following an operating system update that would leave them unable to use our mobile apps.

Our engineering and QA teams test developer previews weeks ahead of major updates to Android or iOS, ensuring our apps are always compatible with the latest versions. 

Users love the Canvas mobile apps!

In the iOS App Store, the Canvas Student app has a 4.7-star rating from millions of student ratings. Since its release, it remains the highest-rated app of any LMS provider. In Google Play, meanwhile, the app has a 4.6-star rating and over 10 million downloads.