By Mark Ambrogi
Zionsville Community Schools has been using Canvas, a learning management system, for one school year now.
Carly Havlik, Zionsville High School technology integration specialist, said the results have been positive.
“It’s very user friendly for both the teacher as well as the students,” Havlik said. “It has a lot of great features that are a benefit to help our students learn and engage with the curriculum. We think it’s a good system for us.”
On June 23, ZCS hosted the first CanvasCon in Indiana at Zionsville Community High School.
“Part of why we do this is to share our ideas and how we’ve been using it, but also to learn from other people that best practices and how to meet the needs of our students,” said Havlik, who served as CanvasCon organizer. “It’s a great way for us to learn how people are using it around the state.”
People came from all over Indiana to learn in the free workshops about Canvas. Havlik said there were about 300 registrations.
“It’s people that have been using Canvas for several years,” Havlik said. “We have a lot of people that are going to be starting with Canvas this year. So they came to learn more about it. We had a lot of people who work for Zionsville that are presenting as well as others from around the state who were willing to share their information and ideas.”
Members of Canvas team were on hand to lend support. Havlik said the attendees including teachers, administrators and tech integration specialists from elementary through high school.
“I think we even had a few higher education people as well as there are some universities that use Canvas in Indiana,” Havlik said. “So it was a great opportunity for people to come and work with other educators to learn about this tool.”
