Alex Sarlin: Steve Daly is the CEO of Instructure. Steve has spent his 25 year technology career building businesses organically and has seen companies through 20 plus acquisitions along the way. Before joining Instructure, Steve was the CEO of Landesk's Ivanti for 13 years, and prior to that, he was the SVP of Corporate Strategy at Avocent.
After they acquired his startup Seranti, Steve also spent 10 years directing marketing for Intel. He has a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering and an MBA in strategy and finance from Brigham Young University.
Steve Daly, welcome to EdTech Insiders.
Steve Daly: Thanks, Alex. It's great to be here.
Alex Sarlin: Instructure, we talk about it a lot on EdTech Insiders because it is such a vital part of the education technology ecosystem and the infrastructure for how everything works, learning management system extraordinaire. And we're talking right on the eve of InstructureCon, which is a yearly event.
It's always an exciting event for educators and tech enthusiasts. Tell us a little bit about actually for people who might not know, tell us a little bit about what Instructure and Canvas are and some of your other products. And what are some of the announcements we can expect this year from InstructureCon?
Steve Daly: Sure. This is, as you said, this is always a really exciting time of the year. We get to get together with, uh, we'll have about 3000 of our customers here. We'll be able to spend some time just reconnecting. So it's partly, partly fun. And then we also spend a lot of time talking about what's coming, which I'll kind of outline some of that in just a minute, Alex, but also, it's an opportunity for our customers to be able to share with each other.
These are the things that are working and these are the things that are, uh, this is how we're leveraging the technology to improve student outcomes to help teacher efficiency. And so, what we do is, , our main product is Canvas, the learning management system. It is the most deployed learning management system.
Particularly in the U. S. nearly half of all U. S. higher ed students are using in about a 3rd of all school districts are using it. We also provide technology that supports that learners, the teaching and learning environment, whether it's assessment technologies, whether it's the ability to create multimedia content, um.
A lot of other technologies that surround the core learning management system. We also have technology that helps administrators better manage their ed tech ecosystem allows them to see what's being used, how often it's being used. You know, being the center of teaching and learning as the LMS, we have a lot of good telemetry data to be able to provide them that information.
And we also help our partners to be able to better integrate into our system as well as give them some of that information about how often their technology is being used in, in the environments. We have over a thousand partners now that have integrated into Canvas and our learning management platform.
And so we're gonna spend some time walking through those solutions. We'll talk a little bit about some of the innovation that's happening. So we continue to innovate on the platform, you know, technology continues to evolve. We'll talk about artificial intelligence, generative AI and how we're leveraging that as part of the learning management experience. We'll talk a lot about the lifelong learning journey. Um, you know, we've done a lot of work. We've acquired Parchment, as a way to be able to evidence a learner's journey and what they've learned along the way.
We'll talk a lot more about how institutions can respond to the needs of the lifelong learner, and a much more mobile learner that has a lot more choice in where they receive their education. We'll also talk, we'll go into some detail about some of those technologies that we have that allow an administrator to see what's going on in their environment, allows a teacher to be able to understand how students are doing and progressing.
We'll give administrators information about how the courses are ready. How are there students that are in need of attention? A lot of insights and analytics, it will be part of this conference as well.
So it's a lot, and it's the next four days. And we're really excited to be able to share a lot of these innovations.
Alex Sarlin: You mentioned a lot of big parts of the Canvas and Instructure world, you know, AI obviously coming to everyone, but definitely coming within canvas and structure.
Integration is such a core part. I think of Canvas is sort of 1 of the major front doors of the entire education ecosystem and it integrates with so many different things. You mentioned 1000 customers, half of all higher education students. And you're also mentioning sort of lifelong learning and mobile learning and credentialing and evidence LearnPlatform.
You didn't mention by name, but LearnPlatform, you know, an acquisition of instructure. That's all about figuring out how Like you said, all the ed tech tools that are in use there about 2700, according to your recent report in any given district. It's pretty amazing stuff. So for people who are already Canvas users or are thinking of using it.
Tell us a little bit about how some of these things are going to play out in this coming year. How are some, what are some of the new developments and new releases coming out in Canvas that address some of these big issues in education?
Steve Daly: Yeah, one of the things that we've built into the system are, first of all, we're always looking at how do we improve that user experience?
How do we make it simpler, easier for teachers? How do we make it simpler, easier for students and learners? And so we'll be announcing a number of innovations in those areas. A lot of what we'll talk about because it's on top of mind of everybody is how should AI be incorporated into the learnings and the learning environment?
And so there are some features, you know, our approach is really one, we're gonna include some of those features inside of canvas it'll come at no cost because we think it's kind of the fabric of how teaching and learning ought to happen.
It's just a really cool technology that makes it much easier. So that's kind of part one of it. Some of it is some really cool incremental features and opportunities that we think that if a customer wants to add it on, that they'll be able to do some of that. And then the third is where we've spent a lot of time, really, how do we make our platform and enable our platform so that others can integrate into it, you know, to your point, it's the front door. So how can we integrate into it in a safe, private, secure way, and allow either other software providers or our customers own internal development to be able to leverage AI on our platform. And so in the first bucket, what our customers are going to see are some, you know, the ability to summarize discussion boards. So big problem for teachers, right? Is I got to go through and wait through all of this discussion material. Well, they can now hit a button using generative AI to get a summary of this is what was discussed. Here's some of the things you ought to be focused on when you get into the class.
In addition, they'll be able to set up those discussion boards so that whoever is participating in the discussion can do so in their own native language. So, from an accessibility perspective, this allows a student that maybe English isn't their first language, although the teacher's language is English, they can all communicate in their own native language.
Again, it leverages some of that tech, AI technology to be able to on the fly translate across the board. In addition, in any communication, it'll, you know, so if you're sending a note, a note back and forth between a teacher and a student again, they can see that in their own native language.
They can respond in their own native language and it'll auto translate for them again, stuff that's been made possible because of generative AI. And then also, we have a smart search capability, which can actually allow somebody to search in context and not have to figure out this and this or this.
You know, not bullying, sort of searching, but you can actually go through and do a contextual search and return results. And so really stuff that we think is kind of core foundational pieces. In addition, as part of our analytic solutions, we have technology that they can add on that allows an administrator to search in natural language.
So, rather than again, putting together some sort of Query they can just say, hey, just tell me which students got less than 50 percent on their last quiz and have missed at least 3 assignments and and be able to get that back again. Query the data without having to know how to SQL or something like that.
So that again is something that's really cool. It's enabled by generative AI. And then we're really, really proud of the work that our infrastructure team has done to create the ability to sandbox course information, make it available to partners, other software vendors in a way that doesn't compromise that data and keeps it in that sandbox allows us to ensure privacy, allows us to kind of qualify those other technologies that are being used, allows us to place it in different places within Canvas. And so that it's available real time to the students or to the teachers. And so really a lot of underlying infrastructure work so that we can take advantage of the time.
I mean, it's just. You were at ASU GSV. We ran into each other and that the number of innovative little startups that are taking advantage of generative AI. We've created an infrastructure that they can do it safely. If a customer has Canvas in their infrastructure, so really, a lot of really cool, cool technology.
Alex Sarlin: Those are all powerful features and Canvas plays such an interesting role.
I know I keep getting back to this, but it's sort of such a central hub. It's a front door. It has so much student activity. So much student data. It has so much instructional content and instructional activity happening from teachers or from peers. Students talking in forums, like you mentioned, and then it has access to all of these other tools that are embedded within it.
And it has administrators looking at it, figuring out if a college uses Canvas, which half of the colleges in the U. S. do, administrators are looking at the canvas dashboards to understand the entire structure of what's happening across the board, across different departments, across different classes.
So there's so much data in there, and it sounds like some of the things you're doing are enabling that data to be used by some of your different stakeholders in really meaningful ways. Translation is a really key one, and I'm sure translation will be used by instructors as well as students. I could imagine but some of these.
I want to particularly dig into this last one because it feels so powerful. Can you tell us just a little more about that idea of how it sounds like you're saying Canvas is sort of being prepared to be able to personalize or differentiate instruction by under actually allowing some student data to safely be shared with external tools so that the tools can actually be tailored to the student.
Is that what we're hearing?
Steve Daly: That's exactly what you're hearing, Alex. It's a, you know, to your point, the nervous system of teaching and learning is, is Canvas. And we take the responsibility to guard and protect that data very seriously.
And so to your point, we've created that infrastructure that allows us to make sure and ensure that that data is protected that it's understood and we'll be announcing some things around what, you know, almost like a nutritional facts for technology that wants to integrate into Canvas.
We go through and make sure that they do X, Y, and Z to ensure privacy so that before we pass that to them, we can also be insured from them that that data is gonna be used responsibly and ethically and legally, frankly, uh, yeah. And so again, we become that steward for the institution to ensure that data isn't being used in an untoward way going forward.
So it is a one, I think it's a really important role that we play in the ecosystem to be that and in any, you know, frankly, we all should be thinking about it in that context, but also because of our position, it puts us in a unique position to be able to do that because of the number of partners that we have integrated because of the number of customers, the network effect of our ecosystem really gives us the right to do this going forward.
Alex Sarlin: I totally agree. I mean, it gives you the right. And I would even say the responsibility to do this because this is something that is really plaguing, frankly, the edtech industry so far is that people just don't have yet a safe way to share data, to share specifically student data, which is so sensitive with the kind of tools that can actually do amazing things with that student data and feed that student content that is based on their interests are based on their learning history or based on their learning preferences.
This has been something that's really kept AI from evolving quickly. It sounds like Canvas is right on it. I'm really excited to hear that. And I think our listeners will be as well. So if you are a AI developer, like one of one of the many we saw at ASU or the air show, and you're interested in getting your relatively small product compared to Canvas, you know, to some of these Canvas users, how can they connect?
What is sort of the process by which they can apply for that sort of nutritional fact label and become a partner with Canvas?
Steve Daly: We have the ed tech collective, where any partner can come in. They can go to our website, they can reach out to us directly. For those partners, there's different levels of engagement, whether they want to just kind of do a quick LTI integration.
If they want a deeper sort of integration for these A I type features, we have a program that they can jump into. They'll get developer support. We'll work with them to fill out that nutritional label and then get them into our ecosystem and integrated so that they're available. And you mentioned LearnPlatform before the other, the other piece that is part of that program, if they choose to engage is that, we also have the ability to create a study for them.
Really a quick rapid cycle evaluation to prove efficacy of their solutions. So not only can we show them that, show the customer that this solution is safe, that it meets privacy, accessibility requirements those types of pieces, but also that, it's actually working in the environment and help the provider, help the ISV to be able to prove the value in their, in the ecosystem.
So again, by joining this program again, depending on how they, how deeply they want to engage, we can help them become much more critical to our joint customers. And again for us, it creates just a much more robust and efficacious ecosystem.
Alex Sarlin: That is very powerful. That's sort of evidence as a service for lack of a better word.
I'm not sure. Right. Figuring out impact, which is another thing that has plagued the education technology ecosystem for a long time is we're always trying to find out if the products are really working. But sometimes that can take time. Take a huge amount of time or money.
It sounds like you're sort of integrating the efficacy studies into the platform itself and into the Canvas ecosystem.
Steve Daly: That's exactly right. And it has been, it's been costly. It's been time consuming and not timely, right? Because it takes so long. And so we do, we call it evidence as a service.
Alex Sarlin: Oh, there you go.
Steve Daly: You're spot on, Alex.
Alex Sarlin: I talked to LearnPlatform a few times. Maybe I'm remembering our conversations from back then. It's a great, it's a powerful model. I really, really like that. Um, so, you mentioned credentialing and lifelong learning and how Canvas is already clearly in higher ed and in K-12 it also works with corporations a lot. You've managed Canvas through a number of really interesting acquisitions recently. We've talked about LearnPlatform, but there's also Parchment, which you mentioned big credentialing platform started by one of the founders of Blackboard back in the day and Scribbles, a recent acquisition also about sort of credentialing and data. Tell us about some of these acquisitions and how they feed into your vision of Canvas as this nervous center hub of the digital world.
Steve Daly: The way to think about it, Alex, is, you know, we are the nervous system for an institution, whether it's a district or a higher ed institution, where we start to see, we see real power is when those institutions now become part of a bigger network.
And so what our goal with these acquisitions, particularly with Parchment has been, how do we make the, how do we enable student mobility? So, you know, there's different points where a student, maybe they're going from high school and they're deciding they want to go to college, right? How do we take the friction out of that move?
Whether it's through dual enrollment or whether it's the ability to apply to schools and demonstrate credentials across those. Whether it's within institutions, maybe when a student wants to transfer, maybe within the same system, they want to share courses and be able to take a course, even though they're going to UC Riverside, they want to be able to take a UC berkeley class. All of those, all of that student mobility and taking the friction out of student mobility is what we're trying to create by creating a network that crosses across institutions, across learning institutions. And so with Parchment, that's exactly what we get is that ability.
They have technology around course sharing. They have around dual enrollment, around credit transfer. But then, over time, as education is getting pushed more and more to demonstrate competency or skills, or that not only are we graduating somebody who could get an A in computer science, but they graduate with the ability to program in Java or Python, whatever.
That those credentials are gonna have to get richer and richer. And again, not just mobile, but also much more information in those credentials. And so by bringing together the leading credentialing platform whether it's a transcript or a diploma or a badge that is in parchment with the actual work, you know, the learning that has happened in the process of gaining that credential when you can start to evidence it in a much richer fashion, it creates a lot more opportunities for the learner and it gives the employers an opportunity to a much, much richer understanding of what a learner's capable of. It also allows an institution to really demonstrate competency, and be able to demonstrate the work and create portfolios for students. And ultimately, we believe is the future, the future of education allows them to pull all of those credentials together, regardless of where they receive them and at what point in their journey that they receive them.
And so we think it becomes really powerful network effects over time, as we bring those two platforms together.
Alex Sarlin: Yeah, it makes a lot of sense. You mentioned portfolio that sort of concept that's growing up the period of a graduate that it is becoming a big deal in education, sort of a competency based, holistic view of what students have done those transitions between, high school and university or high school and employment or college and employment that are so important and credentials play such a big role.
Fascinating stuff. So everybody, keep an eye out for these InstructureCon releases. Keep an eye on what Canvas and Instructure are doing because they are really paving the way in some of the most important pieces of of the education technology ecosystem. You know, we mentioned credit transfer just in passing another huge deal.
It's really exciting to hear that Canvas is thinking about these things so deeply and preparing for an AI enabled. Lifelong learning world because it is coming and campuses is where almost everybody is going to see it happening. Steve Daly, CEO of Instructure. Thanks so much for being here with us on EdTech Insider.
Steve Daly: Thank you, Alex.
