Community

Do you allow your parent observers to post to discussions  @marthazumack ​? ... View more

Will you please add me as a student? jdecker@sjsd.org Thanks! ... View more

If you didn't catch the link to the public course for this session: Instructurecon 2015 ... View more

Thank you ... View more

Thanks! ... View more

WIll you please post a link to your Prezi so we can easily access links, etc.? Thanks. ... View more

Any chance you can post your slide visual for those of us on who are attending but due to our sitting-on-the-floor-location can follow? Thanks! ... View more

Thanks kbeimfohr​ for the excellent ideas . I really like the kiosk option at back-to-school nights and parent-teacher conferences...a lot of our Canvas users are Chromebook classrooms and we could easily turn any number of them into public kiosk devices in a couple of minutes that would open right up to our Canvas login where a parent could sign up right then and there (and then with ongoing encouragement for parents we hopefully will see a larger percent join and be active observers)... I appreciate you taking the time to collaborate. Josh ... View more

Hey Brandon, Our first attempt at a Canvas integration was, unfortunately, not successful...I will try and keep this succinct but sometimes I can't help myself . The Context We are a very large (geographically speaking) school district and we rely heavily on distance education/IVC for instruction and we were asked to find ways to improve how IVC classes were taught. I had been preaching Canvas for about a year and this looked like the perfect opportunity for finally getting Canvas rolling in our schools as I believed in the LMS concept in K12 and it made perfect sense in our IVC environments. With that charge, we hired a very talented teacher/consultant/trainer/IVC Jedi who was very adamant that if you wanted to be successful in IVC you had to integrate an LMS well. He was a Moodle user but I asked him to get on board with Canvas while he taught our group of distance education teachers (which he graciously did and became very discontent with Moodle which I thought was hilarious) and he showed--very clearly and very well--our distance education teachers just how they could/should integrate Canvas into their IVC classes. In addition to the many hours of professional learning we had with this IVC Jedi, we had official Canvas professional learning and in-house sessions for this group and they were all well done. My point? There was more than adequate professional learning (which was done very well and well in advance of the following school year) but not one of these teachers ever made Canvas happen. They were taught well on the "why" and they knew the "how" of Canvas but it simply never internalized to that vision which is required and which motivates a classroom teacher to spend the amount of time it takes to "go Canvas" (and to do it right). Identified group. Lots of professional learning. Clear expectation for integration. Zero results. The 2.0 Believing quite passionately that the LMS will only become more and more essential in K12, I asked for the freedom to try a very informal, grassroots-style Canvas 2.0 pilot. I wanted however many (or as few) who had the vision and desire to make Canvas happen to join in and I would help them learn as much (or as little) of Canvas that they felt was best for their classroom. I made some pitches, met with some teachers I thought would be interested and we started the climb. At first there were only a couple of individuals that really jumped in but I knew that was okay because they were influential and passionate and I knew it was only a matter of time before their cohorts caught on and sure enough that has happened and continues to happen and it is truly exciting to see how many teachers and students are now engaged in integrating Canvas two years since the initial 1.0 failure. No identified group. As much (or as little) professional learning as they wanted. Set their own expectations. Fantastic results and growth. It was all about the vision and passion that these grassroots-Canvas teachers brought out, shared, and showed and we continue to grow Canvas well. If the seven active teachers who are currently piloting Canvas have that vision and passion for Canvas they are the key to making Canvas grow based in your school(s) based on my experience. Allow them to show and share Canvas with their peers and create a collaborative space where they can share ideas, concerns, questions, etc. easily and freely and they will help your Canvas integration happen. Viva la grassroots. Josh (Lastly--we are growing our 1:1 movement in much the same way as we grew the Canvas movement in our district and a lot of us are coming to firmly believe that Canvas gives us a fantastic platform to unify our 1:1 experiment...) ... View more