Solved a problem, evangelized Canvas, empowered students

bogardde
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For an graduate-level educational technology course I took in the summer of 2014, my final project requirement was to create an online unit around an educational topic, via some type of web page or other web-based presence. This project also needed to be accessible to all other members of my class, as well as the professor, for evaluation purposes.

I wanted to create a science fair project unit that I could use with my after-school science fair club when it was done, and I definitely wanted to do my building in Canvas' LMS, which my school district had just adopted a few months earlier. However, I wasn't sure I was permitted to add my non-district classmates and professor as observers to our school district's Canvas site. Hmmm.

After pondering this a bit, I suddenly remembered the Free-for-Teachers site! So I started a new course, built my unit, and added my classmates and professor to the course. In doing so, I was able to leverage all those great Canvas tools to help walk my students through the complex science fair project process. In addition, this gave me the chance to show others in my graduate class what they were missing if their own institutions were not using Canvas. (I also made sure they knew that the FFT Canvas was available to them as well.) :smileygrin:

Later, after the graduate course was over and I had received my stellar (Thanks, Canvas!) grade... I neatly packed up my unit into a downloadable file, then imported it into my school district's Canvas site for use later that fall with my science fair students. A few clicks - Easy peasy! And I've been using it with great success ever since. 

Side Note: Each year, many of my students go on to our State Science Fair, and I believe some of the credit goes to the great way that Canvas makes content easily buildable for teachers, and easily accessible to students anywhere, any time.

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