Using an LMS for the Very First Time

[scottdennis]

I went looking for this topic in the community and didn't find it, so my apologies if is already being discussed elsewhere...

We have a lot of resources and energy devoted to the topic of helping faculty members and institutions migrate from brand X to Canvas - rollout plans, and communication strategies and migration checklists.  But what about selling the basic proposition of a learning management system to a community of educators who have, for the most part, never utilized one?  

I have my own memories from when we did this at a college campus in 2003 where there hadn't been one formally provided.  Some faculty members were doing clever things with their own websites or using publisher provided resources but there wasn't one default platform that students just expected the teachers to use.  It was a time before as Dr. Tod Treat put it "..teaching in an LMS is no longer innovative.  It is traditional teaching."  Rolling out an LMS was something that frankly we had no idea how to well.

Looking back on your own experiences and what you know today, what elements do you think are important in introducing a new technology to a stable group of educators who already have their own toolsets as well as mindsets?  What are the steps, the techniques and the art of doing it well?  What resources would you fall back on?  What are pitfalls that are easy to hit if you don't know about them but easy to miss if you do? 

Robin Beck - The Very First Time (HQ) 

[Kevin_W]

Hi Scott! 

1. They're going to love using Canvas. 

2. Have a training course in the Canvas environment ready to roll. Low pressure, asynchronous, and set up by modules centered around different Canvas elements. Add the instructors to the course as students and set them up with their own sandbox/practice course that they can carry out items in.

3. Encourage the instructors to set-up their courses using modules.

4. As with anything new, get the excited ones and the not so excited ones on the same "canvas advancement" committee. 

5. Get a list of what their current LMS (if they're using one) does well for them and line up how Canvas does it (with features). In almost every case, you will find Canvas to sell itself here.

6. Moving forward, pay attention to the feature updates and share vital ones with everyone. Or all, but it's easy to overload here as Canvas is constantly improving. 

Pitfalls? The biggest one I've dealt with at my institution is the lack of consistent Canvas use from instructor to instructor and trying to retrain their Canvas use as they were never given training from the onset. They all figured it out on their own.

Those are some of the basics. We could dig into the admin side of things and specific features that would help from your side of the equation as well. 

[erin_keefe]

These are great suggestions,  @Kevin_W ‌! 

As I travel around and train different institutions on Canvas, I hear a lot of what you're saying and see a lot of it being done. And the pitfall you pointed out? That's a HUGE one! 

Sometimes we have to train instructors who the idea of an LMS just doesn't seem to make sense. In those cases, I try to find the pain point they might be dealing with. Is it grading? Enter SpeedGrader. Is it student engagement? Enter Discussions or audio/video. Is it organization? Let's talk Modules...

I love when I get the opportunity to show it from the student perspective, and talk about how the students are experiencing the course content without an LMS vs with an LMS used minimally vs using Canvas in its best-case scenario. Those can be difficult conversations to get to, and not everyone is open to changing the way they have always done it...but those who are open to it - that can change a lot of minds about using Canvas!

[rmthomas]

I'm excited to meet you in person today! I just wanted to comment regarding the student experience. I do think you are correct. That is the best way to try and get faculty who are not using the LMS to start using it. The students have been telling me how much they like it better than the current LMS we have.

One thing my institution did was pilot it for the semester before we go live. Our go live date is May 29th, 2018. Having it piloted with 15 faculty currently teaching in Canvas was the right decision. Those faculty are creating a positive vibe about it with their fellow faculty. They have become our power users who are helping each other help faculty in their departments.

[ellenbcutler]

I think the matter of time as it relates to training is key. In my institution it was almost all or nothing, get everything onto the LMS instantly. The result is that younger, more tech savvy teachers who may have themselves used such systems in HS and college do fine. Those of us who, shall we say, are of a certain age and background struggle mightily. I personally had to struggle with the shift from photographic slides to digital images in my art history class (don't laugh--the change was not easy!). We then had Blackboard which I loathed and never in marginally mastered. Next came Moodle, which after about 4 years I was finally developing some comfort with. Now its Canvas, and it has been an uphill climb.

At my institution we recently had a pair of Canvas webinars, one intro level, the other more advanced. I decided to attend on campus because I have never done a webinar from home and the idea positively terrifies me. Way too much to deal with when I am trying to deal with the content being taught. The intro discussion went too fast (and we were having audio problems) but had some worthwhile material. The second was actually quite useful. The instructor (who largely seemed to know nothing about teaching art/art history and therefore our unique needs) slowed down. He spent too much time in material covered in the intro session but then got into the Speed Grader. That was what really helped.

The Speed Grader focus was a great portal for me into the LMS. I know as a teacher what kinds of assessments I want to do; understanding how those assessments might be handled in the Grade Book provided a hook, a sort of velcro surface, for the information. Instead of trying to follow abstractions, I could concentrate on what I already had in place and how I could do those things better in Canvas and the Speed Grader.

Adjuncts like me have a very hard time getting to such meetings--and they cost us $$$ that doesn't come back in benefits or full-time salary. At the same time, such training reduces the error component of trial-and-error and that matters too. My suggestion is, however, to get a trainer who truly understands the needs of the trainees. I don't really benefit from examples related to AP Biology or Marketing 101 or sixth-grade social studies. I spend too much time trying to translate the activities into something that resembles what I do in art history--and that just interferes with my learning.

[Bobby2]

Hi ellenbcutleryou have been through quite a few LMS changes! And you make some great points about training. 

You struck a chord with me about the webinars in particular. We are about to launch ours and just had the first practise. Oh boy. Fast and waaaaay too much included. But how to make the most of that precious time? Your point about slowing down and introducing one useful thing at a time makes sense. 

Your suggestion of including ideas that pertain to your particular teaching situation is valid and would eliminate a lot of experimentation time on your part. Does Canvas Commons help with that for you? 

I take my hat off to you for persevering. 

[kmeeusen]

Hi  @scottdennis ‌

Thank you for asking this very important question, because we are getting lots of first-timers in our Community, many of whom are in the K-12 environment and moving online for the first time

The technology responses so far are great, because I am daily amazed and flabbergasted at how many schools are not training their faculty in how to use the LMS!

However, I am going to approach this from a humanistic and pedagogical perspective, because you specifically asked about users new to an LMS.

• List out the primary activities/functions that face-to-face teachers regularly engage in - communicating with students, providing access to learning materials, providing access to learning activities, making assignments and assessments available, grading submissions, monitoring student progress and more. Then show how those functions can be easier, quicker and more effective using an LMS.
• Be up-front about the time investment - Teachers already spend a considerable amount of time in class-preparation, much of it unpaid. Setting up your course online can mean duplicating that work and the time for teachers who are not trained in how to prep their course directly in Canvas. Teach faculty how to prep directly in the LMS, and be upfront about them prepping their courses up front. In other words, get your teachers to build the entire course, or as much of it as possible before the term starts. Build-as-you-go is fine when there is no other choice and you can stay far enough ahead of your students to make it work, but it makes for a very hectic term for the teacher and much more work. Seasoned teachers already have their content, and in this day-and-age most of that content is available in digital form. Show your teachers how to take advantage of that.
• Teach the transfer of work flow from on-ground to online -  identify obvious primary workflows in an on-ground course, and demonstrate how those work flows can be accomplished online.
• Teach good online course design principles - this, combined with my previous note can make classroom management so much easier.
• Include the student/learner perspective - hey, it's no secret that most of us teach because we care about learners and learning. Point out the advantages of the online learner experience including 24X7 availability, digital content that is much more accessible, etc., etc., etc.
• Teach the difference between on-ground and online pedagogy - too many folks do not recognize that there are even any differences, but there are and they are significant. In the online environment, pedagogy defines course design, and course design supports pedagogy.
• Start slow and small if possible - start with the gradebook and a posted syllabus and such. Start with web-enhanced, move to blended/hybrid, then to fully online wherever and with whichever faculty this is possible.
• Support, Support, Support - The migration from a traditional classroom to an online one is a huge change, and change is challenging for most folks. Be there! And I mean really BE THERE! Be at your user's beck-and-call!

I will also add the typical change management suggestion of identifying champions. Folk who may have some online experience, or who are excited about the transition and can't wait. Give them extra training, and use them as mentors.

A quick review of my hasty list shows that technology is intimately wrapped around every one of those suggestions. That is how you start integrating the technology training.

I hope this is useful for someone out there, and if I find the time I will come back and add more. For now, though, I want to hear what others can add.

Kelley

[jyballe]

Thanks  @scottdennis  for starting this thread and great feedback  @Kevin_W ,  @erin_keefe  and  @kmeeusen ‌.  

Follow up for the group:  

In Asia, we have a lot of first time LMS institutions in all sectors (HE/K12/Vocational) and, outside of specific tactics to encourage adoption by faculty, am curious about organizational structures.  

Did your institutions create a new department to manage the LMS?    Was it deliberate, or did this happen organically over time between faculty / IT.  

Thanks,
Julian 

[kmeeusen]

Hi  @jyballe ‌

I imagine it can be very different from school-to-school or district-to-district, but I will tell you haw we do this at the schools that are part of our Washington State USA consortium of community and technical colleges.

• Historic overview: almost all schools developed a somewhat different structure when they started using LMSs. Typically LMS admin and support functions were an extra responsibility added to the duties of an existing employee sometimes in an IT department, and surprisingly sometimes in the Library staff or in Instructional Leadership staff.
• As online teaching and learning grew it was rather quickly noted that LMS Admins and Support folks needed to be a separate job description. Often these full time positions were simply added to their original department. Many time LMS admin and support consisted of a single position.
• Over time, these developed in to eLearning (or online learning, distance learning etc.) departments but typically under the same reporting structures they started with.
• Over the years different reporting structures were experiment ed with and are still being experimented with.

Depending on the volumes of users and courses, a separate department structure is often necessary.

Organization under some sort of Instruction hierarchy is almost universally preferred in our state over organization under an IT department, but I know there is a lot of variation in that across the country.

Kelley

[scottdennis]

This a very interesting line of thought,  @jyballe  

I'm wondering what lessons learned from people in the United States who went through rolling out their first LMS, maybe fifteen years ago, will translate across cultural lines and which do not apply.  Obviously some of the ways that people teach and learn in different cultures won't be the same but others will.  Maybe the strategy of finding out what teachers want to accomplish and what is helpful to students and then helping them see how the technology can help with that remains a good strategy but what those actual goals are might change?

[Bobby2]

 @scottdennis this is a great conversation starter. Loads of great ideas from people so far too.

Rather than repeating their wisdom I'd just like to throw in a new point. It concerns me that we are tending to teach the technology first and not unpacking what Blended Learning is, what an LMS could provide for teaching and learning. Perhaps experience for the teachers in using different blended learning tools, including Canvas eg. discussions, collaborations first before they are handed this 'thing' and just told to use it. 

@https://community.canvaslms.com/groups/strategies/blog/2018/01/27/horse-before-the-cart-purpose-firs... 

[tolinm]

 @scottdennis  - looks like you have some awesome feedback here but I have to agree with  @Bobby2 ‌ here. Starting with why is critical. It will help combat some of the issues above, too. True blended learning is not just doing what we have always done inside of Canvas. Like Simon Sinek says, "Start with Why." 

After being through multiple K12 rollouts and one HE rollout I've seen that having some set of "norms" has helped with user experience and consistency, but I think others have already mentioned this, too. 

Best of luck!

[Bobby2]

 @scottdennis others have mentioned this but it can't be said enough - make sure there is support. Have personnel ready to go TO the people.

Be patient too, it does take time to gain traction. We have only just begun out foray into using Canvas, people have started using it in all sorts of ways which is very pleasing. Of course we can see the huge potential for teaching and learning as well as for streamlining admin but we can't be evangelising too hard or we could put people off.

@https://community.canvaslms.com/groups/cmug/blog/2017/07/11/dip-your-toe-in-the-water 

Enjoy the ride and best of luck. Keep us posted with what you learn along the way.

[rniolon]

Just a couple of thoughts. I'm a faculty who is a technophile (PC term for geek) and likes canvas. I am at a school where I got to meet an instructional designer once.

1) Build interest first.

* Find your early adopters, let them use it for a semester, and ask for their help. What did canvas make easier for them, what difference did it make to students, what is now possible that was not before... They can tell you how to effectively sell it to their peers.

* They can also serve as resources for those wondering what it is ~really~ like to use it for a whole semester.

* Have them make presentations to demo how they use it, and talk about why they like it.

Free time for them to do all this (let them out of committees or something...), because otherwise this kind of thing is, and is seen as, a burden, and all you will do is build resentment, not interest.

2) Make it easy to start using.

* Use a template. Every time my school has rolled out a new LMS, they set it up to always present a blank course. Most of my on-ground faculty peers log in, see this... and just log out immediately, promising the Divine that they will fool with it later when they have a few hours free. One or two do.

* Offer to help departments make a canvas site to implement large assessments (like a pre and post course quiz for some large multi-section course, or a senior content knowledge exam to use for program assessment). It may be a one-time thing... but that might turn into a friendship with benefits.

3) Make friends with the early adopters. If this is impossible for administrative reasons, just try not to alienate them.

* Do not tell people that feature ~was~ available in the demo we showed you, but we turned it off because of possible security concerns we cannot explain.

* Do not tell people some administrator told us they had to approve that feature before anyone could use it, so we turned it off without warning anyone and have no idea when it will be reviewed and might be turned on again.

* Listen to what people are doing, and how they do it, and if some change in the next update or some feature you will turn off will break what they are doing, warn them in advance. If you believe in reincarnation, earn some major karma points now by helping them figure out an alternative way to do what they are doing. No, maybe you can not do that once you have 100 users, but when all you have 10, it is not that hard, and it will build up support among the early adopters. If you fear building expectations you cannot meet later, think of this as training unofficial tech support people who in the future can help solve some problems before they need to go to the help desk.

* Make it easy for early adopters to port whatever they have been doing into the LMS to test it out. I know - the average user six months from now may not need to do that, but these are your early adopters and they ~do~ need to do that to test the system, so help them move from their old way to your new way. If they are geeky, and willing to do this, then others who wish they were geeky will figure canvas must be something worth taking seriously and follow their example... which is one way they build the community interest ~you~ want them to build.

* If they can't figure out how to do something, put some people on it and figure out how to do it. They will love you and will remember your help when a colleague asks if they know how to do or fix something... see point above about training unofficial tech support.

* Whenever you meet with early adopters, feed them King Cake. I know... you are thinking that doesn't make sense, but just trust me on this.

4) Think about the long term. 

* Do not sell canvas as an LMS with no other possible uses. If you have nothing now, canvas offers you more than you realize:

** Don't assume canvas is only for online courses. I don't teach online, but I like the central place to put handouts, coordinate course emails, upload little things I've made (timelines, slideshows, interactive spreadsheets, gadgets, etc... Yes, I know, I can upload those things to a dozen other places, but I don't want them in a dozen places. I want them in one).

** We also have several committees using canvas sites to organize their work and documents, both for them as they work on things as well as for peers who want to see what the committee is doing.

** Our writing center uses it to allow students to easily submit things for review, and house helpful writing tutorials.

** I built a resource page for faculty in my last department using canvas. It was a place to put all the forms, weird new policies, copies of articles people sent out that later you might wish you had saved, links to something you could never find on the school website using the search bar.... that kinds of thing.

* Make a gentle implementation plan with people. Someone above noted faculty need to build the whole course website before the start of the semester for maximum benefit. That is a great deal of work (I do it every semester). However, you don't start that way.

** This semester, create a basic shell with an outline for the course and materials for one course. That's all.

** Next time you teach the course, add one feature you did not use before and test it out.

** Next time you teach it, add one more feature and test it.

** After a while... people will talk about what they are doing, and get impatient. They will start jumping ahead, creating additional course sites and trying more features. Others will ask to use the shells their peers have built. Building interest pays off over time.

* Remember that group of early adopters who showed what they were doing? Keep that group going so people can problem-solve, try new things and report back what worked well and didn't. Half of them will stop going after a while, but new people will replace them and keep the group active. See the point above about King Cake. 

[Bobby2]

Fab list  @rniolon 

Not sure what King Cake is but these tend to work at training sessions too.

[rniolon]

I'm so sorry to hear this, but you now have an amazing first time experience in front of you

New Orleans Mardi Gras King Cakes - King King Cakes 

[Bobby2]

Good to know. Perhaps tricky to access from Tasmania. 

[scottdennis]

I love King Cakes! They go great with chicory coffee

[Boekenoogen]

Training, Training, Training. The best way to get full buy-in is training.

[lturner2]

Thank you, @Scott Dennis I'm really glad you brought this question up. There have already been some good responses!

I began my career in Academic Technology and Faculty Development in 2000, and like you, we made a lot of mistakes, but I learned from them. As I have gone on to help different schools set up their LMS, the process gets more and more streamlined and simplified, but one must also consider the advancements in technology and the general consensus of the culture of the specific school.

Here's one thing I realized. If I come into a school all gung-ho about changing the culture and getting everybody hopped up on whatever I was promoting, it was generally met with hesitation and suspicion. However, when I came in slowly, took the time to get to know the faculty, helped them understand that I was setting up a department of support, and then set up a sub-culture of peer support, so that faculty could go to each other instead of a tech department, it was received as a great "school-building" concept.

I also had sneaky tactics like encouraging students to give feedback to all of their instructors, those who were using an LMS and those that weren't...and to really encourage their instructors to use it (if they really felt like it was helping them). I learned that if students put the pressure on the instructors, they may come around sooner. Also, if I could encourage the power-user instructors to encourage their colleagues. Also, I would ask non-techy instructors to present at Lunch-n-Learns - these stories were always more real and relatable to the masses, according to feedback I received.

An LMS is not like learning a new piece of software. It can be overwhelming for some faculty, even before they've taken the time to look it over or even try - and no one can criticize that approach, we're all guilty of doing it in some way. When an LMS is new and being presented as a resource platform for a school, it's best to try to start building a community, much like Canvas has done with the Community arena.

We must all be sensitive to the perception of what the instructors are undertaking, and yes, @John Boekenoogen, training initiatives must be constant. For some of us, it's job security. For the faculty, it's peace of mind. For the students, it's engagement and success.

Kudos to all the trainers out there...and to all you instructors who put up with us 

[scottdennis]

Larry,

Thank you for contributing these sneaky tactics.  Very helpful.   

[Bobby2]

I'd love to be able to leave teachers with something they 'could do tomorrow'  @scottdennis . 

Get them so excited they just have to try something immediately. Ideas?

[lturner2]

 @Bobby2 ‌, I also can't wait to hear from  @scottdennis  but in the meantime, I wanted to let you know of something that I have tried in the past, with good success.

First of all, if there's nothing yet in place, start a Lunch-n-Learn or some even in a time slot where faculty can come to community.

Second, I have a few faculty present on a variety of topics - that way the info comes from peers and not the "techy folks." These topics can be anything relating to a Gradebook, podcasting technique, video clip resource site, just anything. If you have a pulse on the going's-on of several of the faculty, you can often find out what they're up to...and then ask them to help you get the word out to the others

As a side-note, I usually identify faculty who are the power-users, and those folks usually are good-natured about trying and testing and providing feedback. Then there are others that just seem...resistant. And that's ok. It just means that there are other ways of tweaking their interests in technology or engagement techniques, and that is where I have others - and not just highly-technical faculty, but anyone willing to present - to assist me in presenting topics.

Just my $.02

[Bobby2]

Thanks Larry . All grand ideas.

[scottdennis]

Hey  @Bobby2  and  @lturner2 ,

I had the opportunity to chat with one of our engagement consultants this morning.  She is someone who is very experienced with orienting and training faculty members who may have never seen an LMS.  I asked her what she has them accomplish in their first session or maybe what to try between the first and next sessions.  I thought she might say updating the syllabus or customizing the Front page.  She said they usually don't spend much time on the Front page as it is easy to add a template via blueprint courses and quickly have the faculty modify that template with their own information.  She said the first activity of substance she usually has them do is to create modules in their courses that equate to weeks, chapters, units, or whatever is meaningful in that setting.  Then she has them populate the modules with placeholder assignments and materials.  That way the calendar and to-do lists - the two most important indicators to students, get filled in.

I happen to be taking a grad level course currently on leadership in change management.  We are studying Kotter's 8 Stage Change Model.  Reading through responses to this post this AM got me thinking of ways to apply the change model to LMS adoption or migration.  I googled around a bit and found references to the model with regards to increasing the likelihood of a successful adoption in a corporate setting but haven't found much about how it might apply in the educational setting - food for continuing thought.   

When I worked on a campus we used to brainstorm on likely technology workshop/brown bag sessions.  Then we sent out a poll, asking people to vote for their favorite topics as well as filling in a Doodle poll with their available times.  Then we created a schedule based on who could attend when and what they were interested in.  Lastly we sent personalized invitations responding to their input.  It was a lot more work than just making a schedule but our attendance tripled.