This year Rockbridge County made the switch from Google Classroom to Canvas. Canvas is the site that most colleges use.
Amy Hinkle, Instructional Technology Resource teacher, has worked first hand with teachers in instructional meetings, called Canvas Academy, where teachers would come and receive help in setting up their online classrooms.
Although Hinkle was not involved in the decision to switch, she is very knowledgeable about the site.
“Canvas is a more powerful tool and it can allow teachers to do more group work, and prepares college bound students to work more closely with sites they will work with in college. There are also many vocational integrations that we can add so they can just pop right into Canvas,” said Hinkle.
As teachers adapt, they are learning new things about Canvas.
History Teacher Lauren Williamson came back from a year of leave and had to learn the site from scratch.
“In terms of adapting it’s just learning a new site, we always talk about there being a lot more clicks, but overall it seems easier for students to see their grades but learning something new and creating modules is taking more time than what I was used to for Google Classroom,”said Williamson.
Rockbridge County offers students dual enrollment (DE) classes, which means they can take a college course and earn college credits while they are still in highschool. This popular type of class has required students to use Canvas, for years before the school made the switch.
Ashlee Payne is one of the DE teachers, and has had to adapt to Canvas way earlier than other teachers.
“Google Classroom is very simplistic and easier to use in a highschool setting. Canvas takes two or more clicks doing some of the same things that we used in Google Classroom,” said Payne.
Teachers and students are learning and adapting everyday to make using Canvas easier.
