District opens a new Canvas, transitioning away from Google Classroom

ELIZABETHTOWN — Bladen County Schools students and teachers will be able to get better daily functionality thanks to new software that is coming into play after a pilot program with staff.

“Canvas is a learning management system,” said Dr. Jason Atkinson. “It is actually the one that has picked up quite a bit in K-12.”

Atkinson is the assistant superintendent of Curriculum and Instruction for the district, and will be the interim superintendent when Dr. Robert Taylor exits. He also handles the technology aspect of the instructional process.

Canvas has mainly seen usage in higher education, but is finding a renaissance.

“Some districts had already been using Canvas in North Carolina,” he said.

Atkinson stated that there is professional development classes that were already offered on Canvas as well and it is integrated with other software that is already being used. That integration will not only save teachers much time, but will make things seamless when it comes to students as well.

Staff will be able to create and upload templates for assignments, and grades won’t have to be transferred in manually like they are now with Google classroom. Atkinson said funding was handled through the CARES Act money that came to the district.

“They knew that districts needed a more robust learning management system,” Atkinson said. “So districts that did not have a contract with Canvas, they actually gave us the opportunity to fund the implementation, and the first year of service.”

That may even be continued for another year, he said.

Training for staff will start in the spring, and that will give them a chance to get acclimated to the program before it is utilized with students. Right now there’s a select group of teachers using the program, trying to work on ironing out the details.

“We have a pilot group has been working together with our digital learning specialist,” Atkinson said. “And so they will be the first group to pilot Canvas in the spring. We just asked them to do one core section.”

The goal is to have those that have learned it early to help with everyone else, so that they have a seamless transition from Google Classroom to Canvas. Atkinson said that they may start that training as soon as January.

“It kind of depends on where we are,” he said. “And we will be able to take the spring semester to get feedback from those teachers who were using the pilot.”

This new program will enable teachers to embed links into Canvas, allowing them to put everything into one place. It will also eliminate manual grade entry. Teachers are having to take the grades from completed assignments in Google Classroom and hand transfer them over to PowerSchool.

“PowerSchool and Canvas synch with each other, so when a teacher grades something in Canvas it automatically loads into PowerSchool. We really want to be strategic in our time.”

The things that have already been created in Google Classroom can be integrated into Canvas, so no work will be lost because of that.

“Moreover, there are some types of things built in whereas, in a Google Classroom….I think that it’s going to be just a matter of a mind shift of being so used to how your classroom is laid out,” Atkinson said.

Templates and layouts can be used, and this will allow teachers to drop materials where they are needed.

“The beauty of this is once they get courses in, and they teach that same section again, they can copy courses and all they have to do is update some materials.”

Now they have to recreate everything every semester and are having to start over again, a process Atkinson said has been frustrating.

In addition to being more efficient, Canvas also has a parent component. This will enable parents to log in and see their child’s progress.

“So the goal is to get some feedback from the pilot teachers,” he said.

They may roll it out as soon as the spring for students if the teachers and principals feel comfortable with it, he said. They want to be able to work out any kinks beforehand.

“So we are trying to keep a pretty much open timeline, and if things are going super well, we may push it up a little bit,” he said.

Atkinson that keeping the transition as stress free as possible is a goal on the forefront, and with training opportunities, he sees this as a positive step forward for the district, making everyone more efficient.

“And if there ends up being some sort of problems, we can come back to it in the fall,” he said. “The best learning, is learning by doing.”