Teachers were able to quickly learn Canvas on their own when Park City School District selected the LMS as part of its student initiative that assigned a laptop to each student until graduation. Easy-to-use and intuitive, Canvas has not only made communication and assignment submission easier, but it also helped bring a common language to the district’s 1:1 program for students.
The Challenge
After funneling thousands of dollars into education technology, Park City School District near Salt Lake City, Utah, reached a point where more wasn’t necessarily better. “There were simply more places for files to get lost,” says Mike Kisow, district technology coach.
To tackle this issue and narrow the technology gap between families of diverse incomes, district ocials decided to implement a 1:1 program where each student would be assigned laptops until graduation.
Key Findings
Administrators found that the right LMS brought the most value to their new 1:1 laptop program.
Teachers needed very little training to start using Canvas, and students none at all.
Instructors across the curriculum use Canvas’ popular features: SpeedGraderTM, Modules, and Integrated Calendar.
The Solution
When administrators first discussed how to implement the program best, they focused primarily on logistical and hardware issues. “In hindsight,” Kisow recalls, “the real value-added piece would be the LMS.”
After evaluating several competing LMS o erings from companies like Blackboard, Pearson, and Moodle in March 2010, they learned about Canvas. It o ered everything the evaluation team was looking for:
- Cloud hosting and storage
- An integrated calendar
- ePortfolios
- Google Apps integration
- Native web conferencing
In a matter of months, we had dozens of courses in Canvas, which is a testament to its relevance and functionality. I tell [teachers], “Get your crazy idea, and I guarantee you we can make it work in Canvas.
-Mike Kisow,
Technology Coach, Park City School District
Officials were also impressed that Canvas was intuitive and easy to use. Kisow recognized Instructure as a forward-thinking technology company that would provide excellent customer support. Park City decided to roll out the 1:1 program jointly with Canvas over a three-year period, beginning in August 2010.
The Results
Ecker Hill Middle School and its 700-plus students were first in line. Because of tight scheduling, the district had less than a month to train the first round of teachers and set up Canvas throughout the school. After a handful of half-day training sessions, he observed that job-embedded training would be more appropriate since teachers didn’t have to learn Canvas per se. Instead, they had to learn how to set up their individual classes on Canvas.
Teachers quickly learned Canvas independently, which led them to create their course immediately. While this highlighted the system’s ease of use, it also created a problem: too much variety. Administrators collaborated with the Instructure support team to tailor the template and provide fewer options to teachers. After a few months, they struck a sensible balance between teacher autonomy and a uniform look and feel. Park City now offers new teachers a half-hour demonstration of the interface, and they return later with course-specific questions.
Kisow says students required virtually no training to learn the interface. Canvas is familiar to the average Internet user because it’s built with the same technology as popular websites. “Our problem was that they found the features too fast,” Kisow jokes. One year after the initial roll-out, Park City introduced Canvas and the 1:1 program to Treasure Mountain Junior High (also more than 700 students). He is confident that each teacher can accomplish virtually any task using Canvas.
“In a matter of months, we had dozens of courses in Canvas, which is a testament to its relevance and functionality. I tell [teachers], “Get your crazy idea, and I guarantee you we can make it work in Canvas.” -Mike Kisow, Technology Coach, Park City School District
The district’s most widely used features are SpeedGrader, Modules, and the Calendar, the latter having supplanted the paper-based planners the district once purchased for all students.
Teachers also enjoy Canvas’s ease of communication and assignment submission. For example, an English teacher—initially resistant to an LMS because she preferred grading by hand—learned that through the “download all” feature, she could print all of her students’ essays in just a few clicks. Her students can submit their assignments conveniently online while she continues to grade them by hand. Even the P.E. department at Treasure Mountain Junior High now has an online presence and uses Canvas to post rules for sports such as badminton.
Canvas really does offer something for instructors and has brought a common language to the 1:1 program.
It doesn’t matter if you speak ‘math’ or ‘literature’ or ‘history’ or even ‘P.E.,’ everyone here speaks Canvas. Canvas is common, controlled, secure, and scalable. It’s the most value-added element to our 1:1 program.
-Mike Kisow,
Technology Coach, Park City School District
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