Canvas Arcade of Learning - A Nostalgic Professional Learning Experience

Today I'm gonna be sharing with you all a course that we created. I'm gonna give you some more on information in just a second, but, I kinda wanna preface this just in case you're like, that is not what I thought the session was gonna be about. And then you can clearly go find yourself another session if you can find a seat. But, literally, it's a a canvas course, so we did asynchronously with our teachers, that they did during the summer, and we're able then to be prepared for the fall when they came in. So That's what I'll be talking about today. I've got one other little nugget that was not in my description of another course that I created with pathways that was more of a hybrid experience.

I'll be showing you that as well. But if that is not what you signed up for, feel free to use your feet and, and move out of the seat. And if in the middle of this, you're like, yes, not what I was thinking it was gonna be. I I will not take offense if you wanna go find another session you think is more up your alley. I've been there and then you feel like, oh, I'm stuck.

I need to listen to this lady talk for the next forty five minutes. Believe me. You do not have to listen to me talk. I will not be offended if you choose to leave in the session. Okay.

So, I am swiss to use a clicker. And, I am Carrie Gardner. That is my Twitter handle or X. I don't know. It changed last night.

We'll see what it's tomorrow. I don't know. I also include my email address on this one, because I forgot it on my last presentation. And, I am an instructional coach, previously I was a district coordinator of blended learning in the Blue Valley School District, which is located in Overland Park, Kansas. I'll give you a little more background on that district in just a moment.

But just recently, I switched over to a much smaller school district. It's called Piper School District. It is in actual Kansas City, Kansas. That's where my children go to school. So I treated in a five minute a thirty five minute commute for a five minute commute.

So the work that I am gonna show you in the beginning of presentation is what I did with the Blue Valley School District, so I just wanna I just wanna be transparent. No. Not hiding anything. But now I work in a much smaller school district, which is the second part of my presentation that I'll show you. I am a CCE Kansas certified educator facilitator, as well as I do some contract work for Canvas as well.

And then I am the creator of the Canvas for Elementary Facebook group. So if you are not part of that, there's a lot of good resources shared It's been a little quieter since like post COVID, but there's still a lot of stuff in the archives there if you search the group, if there's things that you're curious about in terms of elementary. Yeah. Can I just kinda get a pulse of the room, the, like, who I'm talking to here? How many teachers do I have in this? Okay. Cool.

Cool. What about instructional coaches? Great. Principles, admin. Anything else I have been listed? Okay. Great.

Okay. Cool. So this and I'm sorry if you're in my earlier presentation. I am the same person, so I'm gonna give the same intro. But this is me back in, two thousand seventeen, I feel like we're sharing moments.

We're all throwing it back to the old instructurecon. I got the official button for being there. But if you had asked told this girl that she's gonna be like presenting on this stage many years later. I would have told you that's not happening. So, feel a little bit of impostor syndrome such as I look around the room, like, Diana's in here, and I'm like, oh, my gosh, I'm geeking out.

Like, there's, like, cool people in here and but I I just am excited that you guys chose my session. I know there's a lot of really great sessions to choose from. So thank you for being here, and Thank you for putting up with my awkwardness because I never really know what to do with my hands. And, I hope that you enjoy the presentation. And again, if not, feel free to move on to another one and see if it's more to your liking.

So okay. So the objectives for this session are to get inspired to possibly design and create a flexible professional learning experience. That meets the needs of adult learners you work with. Now I will say I had some teachers in this room. I do think that this is something you could replicate in your classroom.

It's kind of a a bit of of work if you were to do this with students, but it's cool to see anyway what we created in Blue Valley. So, and then just to kinda consider how different activities can be reconstructed, to to simulate reflective professional growth when completed outside of the typical format. Hey, I said you couldn't leave, man. Just kidding. Sorry.

I won't call anyone else out. You can leave. Why did I do that? Alright. Sorry. Alright.

We're gonna explore how the design and structure of an asynchronous PL experience impacts the success of learning of the learning experience. So, just kinda wanna be clear of, like, what I'm trying to hit today, and, and, hopefully, I meet the mark. Again, I have a clicker. Okay. So just a little background, in the Blue Valley School District, we rolled out Canvas in two thousand seventeen to our entire district, which is about eighteen hundred teachers.

And then obviously we went through the pandemic and all of that. And we were thankful that our teachers at least had that background of Canvas, and we're able to kind of roll with it. But we also knew coming out of the pandemic that we need something to kind of refresh it, as well as having a very large spectrum of abilities in canvas. We had the teachers that were fresh out of college that had maybe had a unique student, teaching experience. We had our veteran teachers.

They were like, I'm never using Canvas, and then had to. So we had lots and lots of in betweens. And so we needed something that we could utilize to sort of refresh our canvas use, as well as meeting teachers they were at. So we took some inspiration. There is the growing with Canvas in the Canvas Commons.

But we didn't wanna just use that verbatim. We needed something that would, kind of have a little bit more fun with, kind of a play on on the nostalgia of of people's childhoods and and sort of elicit some fun because we were asking our teachers to do it asynchronously over the summer, which you all are here to conference over the summer. And I mean, we're in Colorado, so it makes it a little bit better. But it's still hard to get people to do stuff during the summer. So, as I talk today, I'm gonna try to point out just little nuggets because I realize in this entire presentation, There may be some of it that really resonates with you, other that you're like, meh, that you should've left that part out.

But I'll try to highlight some little nuggets that I think are pieces that you could replicate. That, I, I think are important. So the piece here is we actually allowed our teachers to trade out their time. So we basically said we need to spend three hours in this course And if you spend I think it was three hours. I have it later, so I'll let you know for sure how long it was.

But, if you spend the three hours in this course, Then when you come back to school in the fall, you get those three hours back. And so we know for teachers, how important that time in their classroom is. So instead of making them do PD or PL, on their first day back or whatever, and said it was like you did this over the summer. So now you get to go work in your classroom and have that time back. We also though said if you didn't do it, because we used the credentials and badger at that time to track what people were doing.

And if they didn't, then they had to come to a lovely in person session. And they didn't get to go work in their classrooms. So we had that accountability piece that allowed the teachers ability to choose, do I wanna spend that time in the summer to get the time back in the fall, or do I wanna come to an in person session in the fall and get that in person experience? So, as this I think it was a little it's not like innovative. That feels too big of a word to say for it, but it felt at least kind of, a fresh take on how our teachers could kind of flex that time, and and we got what we needed out of it as well. And then we created two versions of this course, We had an elementary specific one.

We did standards. We do standards race grading for elementary. So we wanted to have at least a little bit more of that lens as they looked at Canvas in that way, and then we also had a secondary specific course as well. Alright. So, from all of that, the arcade of learning was born.

We had six games that our teachers could play. And so you can kinda see again Canvas Kong, mortal canvas. So I I wanna kinda stop here for a moment. Again, kinda something important is We really were trying to create an experience for our teachers. So we really wanted to brand it.

We wanted it to be fun. We also and I'll show this at the end if I have time, but we did one prior to this that was, canvas levels of learning, and it was, like, super Mario themed. And so we kind of played off that game. But we think it's important to sort of have that brand to this experience In the sense of when we come back to it, we can say, oh, yeah. Like, remember the arcade of learning you did that then, because, you know, there's a lot thrown at our teachers, and there's a lot that they have to hold in their brains.

And so the fact that we can sort of use a visual and the theme to kind of elicit that, like, oh, yeah. Yeah. I did do that. We felt was really helpful, and also helps to kind of differentiate those experiences. So then they can think back on, oh, that was canvas levels of learning.

Oh, this was arcade of learning. And even though they are kind of similar, it just sort of helps differentiate those experiences as we reflect back on them. So some considerations that we had is we were, like I said, a district of eighteen hundred teachers, and we wanted to hold them accountable. But we also didn't wanna have to grade every single assignment that they turned in to make sure that they really did the work. So we needed something that would be really easy to grade.

And so I'll show you how we handle that when I go live into the course. And again, I kinda retouched on this, but we wanted it to have that branding. We had a full communication plan. So down to, like, how we're communicating it to our principals, how we're communicating it to the teachers, we had a full blown out, like, what when emails were going out, who they were going to it, and we were very strategic on how we plan that out to make sure that our principals knew about it first. So then as that communication went out to teachers that they were able to or questions, or if there was any feedback on having to work over the summer, that they were able to answer that and kind of alleviate that level of concern.

So we really were really cognizant of how we communicated all of this out. And I already talked about the trading out their time. But because of that, we really wanted each module to be about the same amount of time. So as you look at the six different games, we didn't want one game to, like, super long. And then they go and did the other one.

It took them like two minutes. So we really had to be very strategic on making sure that each of the games was about the same amount of time so that it felt like an equitable experience for all. And there were four of us that worked on this. So we really had to have that coordinated effort we had like a style guide to make sure that as we were developing the modules that we were using the same size font, which I realized maybe doesn't sound like that big of a deal. But it is.

As a former art teacher, like all those things matter. And, again, that consistency piece is is super vital. So we like I said, we created a style guide to make sure that we were all on the same page. And then I was sort of the, if you will, project manager of the course to really make sure I was going through after the other, three people working on it to make sure that we were all meeting that expectation. So Yeah.

Those were some of the considerations. Alright. So now I'm gonna ask them to pause here. Are there any questions before I jump into the course live? Yes. Yes.

This teach us how it's okay. I like yeah. So, yes, they had a choice. And what's kinda cool is I'll show you a quiz that we had them take that allowed them to also see which which, game might fit them best. So that way, then it wasn't just like they were kind of like stabbing in the dark on which one was a good one for them.

We had them take an introductory quiz that gave them some You can probably tell the summer that we rolled this out, because of the updates. These were canvas videos. I don't know why that I think maybe because we switched from Vimeo or whatever. I don't know. So that video is no longer there.

But we took this as an opportunity to make sure that our teachers also knew about the updates. New quizzes. That's Funny. If you know, you know. This was this is also, the direct share it just come out as well as the confetti.

I mean, we had to highlight the confetti because that's, like, my favorite part of Canvas now. So but this was just a really great opportunity to make our our teachers all aware of the new updates in canvas. And then, This was, like, really talking about the why. We have teachers. Obviously, they were using it during the pandemic, and their reason for using it was because we were in a pandemic and they had to.

So we wanted to really go back to the why for using canvas. So I feel like these are really important pages because it helped them see that it's it's not just a pandemic tool. So this was a little video just kinda capturing that, and I'll highlight, some other pieces of that as we go on as well. And then this was the elementary one. So it did talk a little bit about standards based grading, but this also went into just like enhancing student learning, and then saving time.

And again, this was from, from growing with Canvas as well, but we felt it was an important part to keep because we really wanted our teachers to really think about the why of using Canvas and not just, oh, I have to do this thing during the summer. Okay. So this is the token quiz. So each of the teachers started with this quiz, and this was a requirement. So they could not move it.

They had to actually do it. And so they would go through, and this was really them kind of evaluating themselves. So, like, I can customize my course navigation, I can make changes to personalize the district provided blueprint homepage. If they couldn't do that, then they would click false. And so, basically, each one of these questions is aligned to one of the six games.

So there's only six questions, but I'll just real quickly take this quiz, answering every other one. And what was nice about this is we had teachers that took more than one game. So if they finished their two games, they would go back and they would take more if they felt like it, those overachievers. But it was nice that all six were available to them if they wanted. But then from here, this is where we use that immediate feedback.

So I talked a little bit about kind of those little nuggets of really good stuff. This I feel like is a really underutilized feature in Canvas. I love this immediate feedback. So from here, it said, alright. So I think I said false.

I can't do these things. So basically, like, it's on. K, king kong, it's on. But don't if you need help with your course settings and customizing your homepage, then Canvas calling is the game for you. In this game, you learn, blah blah blah blah blah.

So that told them, alright, this would be a good game for me. And then moving on, fantastic. No need to kick it in mortal combat, or mortal canvas. Sorry. So it gave them that immediate feedback help them see which games would be a good choice for them.

And obviously the way I answered it showed that I need more than two. So that might then bring a teacher to be like, oh, yeah. I should maybe maybe dabble in a couple of them. Maybe you don't wanna stop it just too because clearly, I got some work to do. Now you may think, alright, what about those teachers that check all of them? And they're like, says that basically they don't need to do any of them.

Well, they still had to pick two. And in each of the modules, we had a space that was kind of like, I think we called it a power booster. And so, basically, it was probably, you know all this information. Here's some extra stuff that you could do that's gonna boost that. So and obviously, those teachers that could kind of test out of it, well, I mean, there's a trade off there.

Maybe they didn't spend the three hours like they were supposed to, but also they're probably our Canvas Go getters. They're probably the ones that are helping other teachers I think it all comes out in the wash in that sense, but we did at least have some options of an extra power booster for those teachers that may need the extra piece. And then from here, they got their tokens. Though I feel like on this screen, that looks like the moon, but I promise that's a a token emoji. But basically, they had their tokens to now spend in the arcade of learning.

We did have the we did badgeify it. So that was actually how we kept crack of who had finished it. So we were able to very quickly see who had actually submitted and who had earned their badges so we knew then which ones had to come to us in person. And so it's kinda cool. We used these six badges, had a little explanation of what digital badges are.

And then from there, they actually were able to move into the arcade and spend their tokens. So today, I'm just gonna take us into Canvas Kong. They're all laid out exactly the same. Consistency is key. So I don't need to show you any of the other games because they all look the same.

But I'm a pause here. Any questions so far? Yes. But I really like this. Is there you you said this is based off another? Yeah. Growing with Canvas.

Mhmm. So growing with Canvas is in the Canvas comments. I do not know when it was last updated. Perfect. Yeah.

And Aaron Lundford, he used, I think, in my other session, but he great guy. She did a really great job on it, so definitely check it out. Yes. Also even. Using tables.

Yep. Using tables in the sense. Yeah. I am normally an advocate for not using tables. I like to kind of space out my stuff, but in a sense, we use the headers.

So for accessibility purposes, part of using, tables as having those headers. So because we have the names of the games and the headers that it it does meet the accessibility guideline. We also had, like, check out a video game trailer, so each game had a, a video that, like, was a little trailer for the game that we used WeVideo to make just Again, for fun. Any other questions? By taking the quiz. So just by taking the quiz, they get their tokens.

Okay. Yeah. Okay. So this is what the landing page looks like for every single one of the games. Oh, yes.

Yep. Yep. Yep. So we had requirements within the module, and I can pull that up in just a minute, as well as requirements before they could move on to next ones. Now, obviously, because they could take any game, we couldn't really lock it, lock it down.

But it it still it did its job. It did what it needed to do. So from here, you can see we had a level one and a level two of the game. We used as much as possible just so we didn't have to recreate the wheel. We used canvas guides.

We used canvas videos. There were some instances where as we watched the video, like, oh, that's not quite how we do it. So we need to blue valueize it. So we did make own videos, but for as much as possible, we tried to not reinvent the wheel. There are so many resources out there in the Canvas community that it wasn't hard to pull stuff.

But this piece I really wanna highlight, it's that canvas in action. And so I talked about that why of using canvas. It's it's pretty difficult For teachers, not it's not pretty difficult, but it can be for some teachers to really picture what it's gonna look like in their classroom. And so what we did is we reached out we just, I think, put an all call out to our teachers, and obviously had to ask some, tap some specific shoulders and say, Hey, will you create a video for for us? But we asked our teachers to show Canvas in action in their classroom. So make a quick little screen cast of a course or show a student using it.

Whatever it might be, it was like, what do you how do you feel like canvas is going really well in your classroom and create just like a two minute video for us? And so that is another reason why we had a different elementary and secondary course. Because we wanted those videos to be grade level specific. But so on every single game, there's an opportunity to see these features in action in the course. Again, I don't have those videos anymore, want want. But essentially, I think this one was, like, basically, teacher was kind of showing how they had change the blueprint that we provided for their homepage and kinda update it.

It made it snazzy. So, but each of the canvas and actions match what was in the game and allowed those teachers to really see what it could look like in their classroom, and also to know someone else in my district is doing this. And we attached the teacher's name, and they were willing to, you know, have their email and people could reach out and all of that. But I just think that that's really a powerful piece of creating that community, and knowing that there are teachers using it. Cause I think sometimes, you know, you can get in your own classroom and think, like, No one else is doing it.

Well, that's not true. We got a video to prove it. So, but yeah, so that was just I, for me, that was a huge piece of this. That was kind of a non negotiable for me. I felt like it really needed to be, for our teachers to see that.

So Alright. And then again, you're gonna really see that consistency piece every single page in here looks the same. So we have plugin plugin is basically kind of an overview of what this page is about. Again, I told you we tried to use those canvas videos as much as possible. So we we use their tutorial overviews.

We would even steal text from their guides. We could obviously tweak it and edit it, and that kind of thing make it fit us. And then this is that knowledge booster piece that I talked about, so kinda giving more information. A lot of times, it was just canvas guides that teachers may not have explored before, but for every single one, we had those three components. And you'll see that again here.

Plug in, take control. Yep. Video is missing. Information to read, and then those knowledge boosters. And then the final thing was this task.

For each one, we did have a video that's and that those we did have to create ourselves. It basically said, here's what's expected of you to complete the task. Again, teachers are on summer break. We're not necessarily in the office. So we really needed to make sure all the expectations were clear.

So we provided just a quick little video saying exactly what we expected here. And then we also provided the written instructions, which were to use their sandbox course, create, work with their navigation, remove anything, reorder the items, and then take a screenshot. And we made sure to provide the guides as well. And again, we provided that link that click here if they needed help, and that would take them back to that screenshot. And level two looks exactly the same.

As they move into that level too, it's got that plugin, take control, and so on and so forth. So I'll go back. I'll go to that module view now. So you can see well, I'd oh, yeah. They're down here.

Sorry. So we had to complete all items. They had to submit that to earn their tokens. So they couldn't move on. To the other games until they've done that.

We have the mark as done. They had to just view a couple pages. And then this last one is that initialing the leader board. So they had to do a self check. So within this, we had, multiple choice questions as well as, and this is also kind of if you like underutilized feature in Canvas that I love is we had them submit their screenshots here.

So they did the task back in level one and level two. They took their screenshots, and then we had them submit them here. So if there were any teachers, we could kinda check and see ones we may think late slough the work. All we need to do is go into those quizzes. So instead of me having to go into a level one assignment, and then a level two assignment, I was able to, like, go right into the quiz.

How they did on the quiz, as well as see their screenshots all right here in one place rather than having to go to multiple places to do that. So that is a feature of quizzes that I really love I feel like there's also, you can use the rich content editor in a quiz so students could submit videos or even take a picture of a drawing, whatever it is, feel like there's some really cool features like that in quizzes that allows it all to be in one place and easy to grade. Alright. Any questions about anything that I have shared so far? Yes. No.

You're totally fine. Is your district have a minimum use policy? We don't. Or she asked if our district has a minimum use policy. But they have to do their grades in canvas. So by default, they have to use it.

So this was sort of our way of Austin's sort of showing them what's possible. So, hey, you are using it for your grades. Why not also use it for some other things? Alright. Okay. I'm gonna go back if I can find my mouse.

Sorry, guys. Okay. Oh, and I forget there. There we go. Okay.

So here's why I really feel like this was successful. We met teachers where they were at. We really allowed them to pick and choose. We allowed them to decide they wanted to complete it, where they wanted to complete it, literally they could have done it poolside. And I think that there's, some nice autonomy in that, giving teachers that freedom that really allows them to feel some ownership of the learning.

We also chunked it into really digestible amounts of information. We kept that consistency piece so that asynchronous environment was super easy for them to navigate with a whole lot of instructions and questions. We didn't take ourselves too seriously. We tried to have fun with it, you know, and and really create that experience for our teachers. And then we also modeled structural components that could be replicated in their classroom.

The idea was like, Hey, we created this learning experience from you, What are the pieces of that that you could take back into your own classroom? Having that consistent structure, using videos for explanations, like those using a quiz the way that we did, using prerequisites and requirements, So those things, the idea was that we were modeling them so that they could also use them as well. And then, like I said, it just allowed teachers to complete the content when it best worked for them. And I I think that's a huge piece when really honoring teachers time. Yes. Could you have the in person teachers? Like, the ones who show not to do it in the summer? Did they just, like, do the same thing that that's cool? Kind of.

We actually, we did bring them together, in person, and we basically just went through the first two modules, or the first two games. So it was kinda like, well, you chose not to do it over the summer, so I mean, because we basically weren't able to really differentiate in that personal in that in person. And there are some people that prefer in person learning. So we did kinda create a modified experience, in that sense, and that allowed them also to, like, ask questions. And there's just people that just learn better in person.

We wanted to acknowledge that as well. But basically, we just took them through the first two games. Good question. Yes. What's the, completion, like, how many did online and Oh, I have no idea.

That was a really great question that I just don't have the answer to. Okay. From here. So these are some additional, experiences that I've created for teachers So, again, kind of thinking of that branding and making things fun. But I am gonna show you this, this is my current school district.

We did this PD Revolution. And basically said it's, like, not your I use the New England Revolution. And maybe even still in their logo. That's probably copyrighted, but it's fine. Right? Not like I'm presenting at a conference or anything.

Oops, daisies. Maybe don't post that on Twitter. Anyway, so I I I a lot from the New England Revolution. But yeah. So we kind of we created a hybrid experience for our teachers.

So we had some online components, but most of the courses were in, in person. But we wanted to track it in canvas and allow them to kind of create these pathways. So, essentially, we had them, earn coin badges, as well as application badges. And then if they got enough coin badges and enough application badges, then they got a pathway badge. And so here are or here's the first option.

So the option, this was a PD pathway. So essentially they went to three core sessions, and were able to get their coin badges. And then they actually had to apply it in their classroom. So this is where it sort of became this, like, I don't know, kinda crazy experience. We use our instructional coaches to see them apply it.

They had a couple options on how they could apply it. They could talk to their PLC about what they learned during their sessions. They could take something from the session and demonstrate it in their classroom. The only requirement was really that they had to work with their instructional coach to show that they were applying their learning. I don't know if you're like me, but I've taken a ton of notes during this conference.

I have no idea how I'm actually going to apply them. So we thought that this was a way to sort of again hold our teachers accountable and an accountability in a good way. Like, as in, like, I'm trying to lose five pounds while you, like, hold me to it. Like, this was a way for us to Hey, you've done the work. You've sat in the sessions.

You've learned the content you need to learn. Go apply it and have someone that's gonna make sure you apply it because otherwise it just kinda sits in our brain And we have a tendency to just let it float away and not do anything with it. So we loved this idea of you've been to the courses. Now you're gonna apply it. And if you apply it with your instructional coach, then your instructional coach submitted it.

It went into badger, and then you got the badge. And then we also had two elective sessions. So they had it complete. It's like five sessions, as well as the application, and then they got their pathway badge. So this was option one.

Option two was they could choose their own adventure. So they could basically just go to five elective sessions. Our core sessions were, like differentiated learning. So all three of those sessions were focused on differentiated learning. Our electives were all over the place.

So for this one, they could choose our own adventure and just do electives. But they still had to apply it. So in order to get that, that choose your own adventure badge, they had to apply it. For us, that was like a huge piece because we needed that follow through on the learning. And then the last one was just selected.

So these were teachers that I'm not interested in amplifying it. I'm not interested in way badge, just let me go to the sessions. And so we, just had, like, you get as many of those as you wanted to. And we, of course, you know, ordered the little stickers. I've got one on my Yes.

I used my own laptop. Don't tell anyone. Like, I got a little coin sticker on my laptop, so we had the stickers to hand out. We had, We had prizes for them. You know, if they got all three coin badges, they got entered to win a gift card.

And if of all our teachers, if they completed the pathway badge, They actually got entered to win an expense, all expense to go to a national conference. So, and we had, you know, and I'm in a much smaller district now. I've got one high school, one middle school, two elementary schools. And we had about fifty, sorry, twenty of the secondary level, fifty at the elementary level, teachers that were involved, that that took part in this, and it was completely optional. We did not it was not a requirement.

It was something like, Hey, we're gonna do this little initiative. Whoever wants to participate gets to participate, and we had a really good turnout. And so it was kind of a it was a nice way to use canvas in kind of a different way where it was like really just, capturing their learning and they had some reflective pieces and that kind of thing that they submitted to then get those badges. But it was all tracked than in Canvas for us to be able to to select our winner from. So Alright.

That is technically all she wrote. So I'll I'll take any additional questions. Yes. Things? I mean, it they they really appreciated that autonomy piece, like being able to to do it whenever they wanted. That was a huge piece for them.

Yeah. Yeah. Any other questions? Yes. First office was fantastic. Thanks.

Thank you. I do like your sessions. Do you and other instructional questions do all sessions, or did you like the groups of teachers that had Oh, yeah. Sorry. So for these, actually, it's Super funny story.

Again, I'm being recorded, whatever. My director at the time didn't want me to present in these pathways. She really wanted to empower teachers. It's kinda weird. I'm like, I could do a canvas one.

And she's like, no. We wanna empower the teachers, which I get. I get now. Like, it is great. It is it's a different experience.

Like, me up here. It's like, oh, that canvas lady again is trying to get me to do something, where we had our teachers lead all of these sessions. So the electives all the way down to the core we did kinda tap some shoulders for the core ones. Like, hey, you're really good at differentiating your classroom. Would you mind leading a pathway on that? We had one for social emotional learning.

Now off the top of my head can't think of the other ones, but we did tap some soldiers of some teachers that we knew would be really good at the cores. But then for the electives, we basically opened it up to the district and said, Hey, if you wanna present, I think we gave him, like, a a stipend for planning. But beyond that, it was like, Hey, if you're willing to lead an elective session, we put it in the catalog, and then they were able, like, teachers have selected it. So We really did hindsight. At the time, I was like, she didn't want me to present, but now, like, hindsight, I was like, that actually worked out really well because they were hearing.

Again, from teachers who were doing the things in their classroom, and it is it's just a different experience when you know that those people are are really in the trenches, because I'll admit as an instructional coach, like, I I'm a a level removed And so, it was it was really great. And it, and it allowed teachers also, especially the ones that we, like, tap the shoulders up. They're like, oh, I'm doing a good job. You you want me to present on that? Like it kind of boosted their confidence as well. So, yeah, for all of these, it was teacher led sessions.

Great question. Anything else? Yes. So if I was a teacher about doing all of these, how would I keep track of all the coins that I got? It was all tracked through Canvas. Through like Yeah. So oh, I hope I can jump in live.

Sorry, guys. There it is. We also had a secondary and elementary version of this as well. But they had assignments. So you can see and sorry.

There's a lot in here. But, basically, like, they they submitted, and it was literally, like, I was there. I think there's, like, a question. Oh, yeah. Because we just took their, basically, their honest, honesty policy.

I think the question is, did you attend the ninety nine problem session? And the answer was, yes, you got your badge. So I did it all through Canvas, literally a one question quiz, pop in, answer it, and it tracks it for us. And, what I would have the teachers do that were leading the session was at the very end of it. Hey, everybody. Hop on Canvas.

Yes, you were all here. Moving right along. And then for the application one, I had the instructional coaches. Like, if you met with me and you shared with your PLC, then we real quick clapped into hopped into Canvas. You said you did it.

I watched you do it, you're done. So we tracked it all through canvas with, like, just simple one question quizzes. And it's all through badges. All through badges. Yep.

And at the time, it was badger. We'll admit that. So it's obviously now moved to Canvas badges, credentials, whatever it's called, which we we work the same And actually, I would love to have used that pathways, but that's a paid feature, but it would be like so perfect for this. So, yes. These were after school, which is the part of the reason why we did have elementary and secondary separate because I'm a huge fan of just mixing everybody up.

Like, feel like we have so much to learn from each other. So I'm like, just mixed bag, but our elementary schools get out later than our secondary schools, so we had a two two different sessions, which was kind of a bummer. But it worked. Yep. They were all after school, and like I said, completely voluntary.

And, oh, I was I was shocked. Like, honestly, I was like, we're gonna try this, and it may not work. And it it was surprising how many teachers, especially I feel like coming out of when I keep coming back to this, like, coming out of pandemic learning, like, I feel like teachers and teachers in the room correct me if I'm wrong, we're craving that learning. Like, there's I feel like there was a a portion of time where we weren't. We were on Zoom, or we were not really doing real professional learning, and was an opportunity that our teachers hadn't had in a couple years.

And so they were really craving that, that learning. And so I was shocked at how many teachers participated with, like, literally no pay and just the incentive of, I might possibly win a conference. So Yeah. Yes. Do you have a chance to talk about the app methods? Oh, yeah.

Yeah. That was actually just like a one day PD thing, but do I have time? Well, I don't even know what time I session Sorry. I got six minutes. Alright. Let me hop in there.

Which is really funny. So, in another session, we were talking about, like, who has admin rights. Before I came to my district, they had we have two technology teachers, and they had admin rights, and he actually deleted my course. I had to, like, reach out to Canvas. I was like, can you can you get my App Madness course back? Because he just he didn't realize that he was only he thought he was just deleting it for himself and he deleted it completely.

And I'd planned on, like, using it to send announcements throughout the year and all that, and then they were not in there anymore. Sorry tangent. Yeah. So, this was just like a one day, professional learning. And what was kinda cool about this is it was a hybrid kind of I used the Canvas course.

But basically what I did is I had them look at different apps. And from there, Like, they watched a WeVideo on WeVideo. They watched a flip grid on flip grid. The next round was like genially. They explored it genially about genially.

So I really try a padlet about padlet. So all of the tools, they basically, like, were able to see the tool as they learned about the tool. Yeah. Were they voting on which one? Yes. And then so for each round and this is the cool part because we were in person, we were like in our big cafeteria.

So, basically, I, like, had them spread out so they could explore within Canvas. And then they said, I was like, alright. Round one's up, and I had to assign over there and assign over there. I was like, alright. If you pick we video go over there.

If you pick whatever the other one was over there. And they voted, and then we had a whole bracket on the board. And, it was pretty cool. And, again, the part I loved about this is they were learning from the actual tool. Let me go back to a better one, though.

Yeah. So hopefully, my genially is still alive. Yeah, so check out this interactive genially, bow genially, which maybe will never show up. Who knows? It's probably You guys get the idea though. So, I thought that was kind of a cool way to handle that.

And it was nice because basically and I made sure, like, in my descriptions, like, please bring headphones. They kinda had, like, were in their own. They could explore at their own pace. Then I gave them a time on the board. And I was like, alright, everybody done.

And then they moved. It got up. It was, it was a really cool session. So Thanks for asking me to to share that one. Any questions about that? Is that a comment? It's not, but I totally could share it.

Yeah. I will make a note of that Somebody remind me. Awesome. Okay. Alright.

Thank you all. So much for your time. I appreciate you being here. Oh, and, I will go back to This slide, doodlee doo. I had a whole thing for you guys, but you guys took up all the time.

So that's great. So again, QR code will take you to a folder. Currently, the only thing in it is this presentation, but I'll throw some other, like, links and stuff in there. And then feel free to reach out. For me, my sessions never end at the session. You are now like my Canvas family. Please feel free to reach out if you have any questions or if there's anything I can do to support you.