If the 2020-21 school year confirmed anything, it’s that educators are truly innovators. They found new ways to adapt to the needs of their students and mastered new technologies along the way. 

The learning curve was sharp but fruitful. Educators now have the tools and skills to create engaging blended learning experiences while students are connecting, collaborating and developing competencies that will help them in their future careers. 

According to Instructure’s recent study on the State of Teaching and Learning in K-12 Education, ​​just over 80% of educators believe that moving forward, technology will become increasingly important in teaching and learning. And almost 70% agree that remote learning will impact everyday classroom practices in the future. 

It makes sense, right? The world has changed. We all have. And with the digital skills we’ve cultivated, classrooms will change for the better.

The “new normal” will include digital collaborative workspaces

As many classes shifted online during the pandemic, educators became well-versed in using digital tools like Miro’s collaborative whiteboard to teach, connect and stay organized. 

After experiencing what it was like to work in this way, many educators have decided that incorporating these tools into their current curriculum will benefit students, whether working in-person, incorporating a hybrid model or going fully online.    

To that end, the University of Cambridge, known for exceptional in-person instruction, entered the online education realm this fall with their first virtual courses featuring a new Miro + Canvas integration. Students of Cambridge Advance Online are now able to connect with professors and peer learners and work together within the Learning Management System using Miro’s online whiteboard tool. 

Michael Creswell, director of Design and Online Learning for Cambridge Online Education, describes the Miro + Canvas integration as “a tool that extends the Canvas environment and provides almost limitless opportunities for student collaboration and co-creation.” 

Why Miro + Canvas? 

Cambridge’s learning designers chose to incorporate the Miro + Canvas integration so the university could offer a dynamic, social, and collaborative online experience in line with their reputation for outstanding education. 

Miro is the most popular online collaborative whiteboard platform, trusted by 20 million users worldwide, including educators and students from Cornell, UCLA, Northwestern University, and MIT, just to name a few. Canvas, dubbed the “digital brain” of educational institutions, is the world’s fastest growing Learning Management System, used by 100% of Ivy League Schools for course management and communication.  

Here are some other reasons why using the Miro + Canvas integration is a win for educators, learning designers and students alike: 

• The integration allows for seamless and personalized instruction, whether remote, hybrid, live, asynchronous, or in-person.  
• Educators can deliver engaging learning experiences that support diverse learners and multiple learning styles. 
• Students can save, revisit, and build on ideas and projects in the digital space.
• Real-time whiteboard collaboration opens up more ways to engage and share, and gives a voice to those who might not otherwise speak up in calls or in-person settings.
• Students build confidence as they learn and master real-life digital tools that will be applicable in current or future jobs. (They can put technology used in class on their CVs.)
• Teachers can easily add content from multiple sources and under various formats which students can then interact with and comment on. 
• Content remains available for remote and asynchronous learners and those who desire to revisit class materials.

Miro + Canvas together open up a world of possibilities. Teachers have everything at their fingertips to stay connected, organized and to draw out students’ creativity, problem-solving skills, and ingenuity!  

Miro at InstructureCon 2021

Miro is honored to be a part of InstructureCon 2021, where we’ll showcase the new integration and share more innovative ways to use a whiteboard to engage students both online and in person. Miro is here to support educators as they prepare students for the digital, hybrid workplaces of the future.

Some quick examples of ways teachers can shift their classroom to a blended learning environment:

• Offer online office hours for students 
• Send check-ins and short video lectures
• Create a weekly digital whiteboard message with assignments, expectations, and places to share questions, feedback, and shout-outs.

Educators can choose from Miro’s pre-made whiteboard templates, boards made by other teachers, or create their own. 

They can also submit their boards to Miro’s monthly template challenge for a chance to win an iPad pro for their classroom.

Thanks to the new integration, now everything created in Miro for courses can be incorporated and managed within the Canvas space. And it’s never been simpler. 

Making educators’ and students’ lives easier, one click at a time

The new integration combining Miro + Canvas enables educators and students to interface within the Canvas LMS using Miro’s online whiteboard platform. This means everyone spends less time dealing with setup and logins and more time focusing on actual learning.

Here are some of the user-friendly, time-saving features of the integration: 

1. Now you can create or edit Miro boards right in Canvas in just two clicks. Students have easy access to activities and can work on them at the time or place they learn best.

2. Embed a board into Canvas pages and set access rights without switching between tabs and apps.

​

3. It’s easy to get set up with Miro while in Canvas – easily, quickly and securely. Students have instant access with a single login. The Miro LTI integration with your Canvas account means you no longer have to make boards public to share them, keeping your information secure. With an SSO login, identifiable students are given access to the right boards. No more manually inputting students!

4. You can create more visual, creative and interactive assignments for students. Choose between individual or group assignments and grade them using the SpeedGrader. 

5. You can turn assignments into templates for future use. Every individual or group of students will get a copy of the board that teachers attach to assignments.

With the Miro + Canvas integration, students now have a central place to find all learning materials including Miro boards with no need to switch between tabs. The instant creation and attachment of engaging, interactive boards, the removal of extra logins, and the ability to easily share and grade projects right from Canvas gives teachers more time to focus on what’s important: their students and the ways they learn best. 

If you are interested in learning more or customizing a Canvas LTI integration for your school, attend our talk at InstructureCon 2021 or contact Miro.