San Jose State University

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Video Transcript
[MUSIC PLAYING] TED COOPMAN: The technology on campus has always been incredibly fragmented. Part of the process of choosing Canvas was really the beginning of trying to remedy that. STEPHANIE COOPMAN: We really didn't have a very strong online presence. Not even just online classes, but the adoption rate was really very low. We could look at Blackboard, we were using D2L, there was Chi, there was Moodle, and then there was this thing called Canvas that I'd never heard of. And so I contacted a few people I know who had been teaching online for some time and they said, oh, Canvas.

Yeah, definitely you should check it out. TED COOPMAN: And so then Stephanie went there and just freaked out. I mean, she was just like, this is incredibly awesome. You have to check it out. And so I went and checked it out and I'm like, I can't believe it.

It actually makes sense. It's clean. It's simple. It's sort of like old and crappy, which is usually what we get, it's new and shiny. And that was the argument in the committee.

It's like, can't we have something nice for a change? Can't we get the nice LML for a change? Come on. [MUSIC PLAYING] STEPHANIE COOPMAN: It was clear that Canvas was just so, so far superior, so innovative, and that it was designed by people who understood what it was like to teach online. JEREMY KEMP: We looked at really what our students were interested in doing. They know how to use Gmail, they know how to use cloud apps, they know that interface. They're familiar with it.

So we had a chance here in the Silicon Valley really to be innovative and forward looking. I think, in the end, that's what made the decision easy for us. TED COOPMAN: There's a philosophy behind those other learning management systems that is very antiquated, it's very linear, and, quite frankly, very ideological in terms of you have very few options in terms of teaching. The older systems are really-- they've come to an end. We need to look now at a different kind of interface and Canvas has it.

ROXANNE CNUDDE: The first time I logged into Canvas I had high hopes because I heard so many great things about it from my colleagues and it lived up to those hopes that I had. Canvas is just so easy to use and it does so many things. You can use it a little, you can use it a lot. The exciting thing about it is that it just works and it's easy to use. I mean, ultimately, that's what you want.

STEPHANIE COOPMAN: I hadn't realized just how wonderful Canvas was until I used it in the class and my students did the best they have ever done in that class. I enjoyed it so much that I emailed our sales rep and the subject line says, I heart Canvas, and it was a more fabulous experience than I had even imagined it would be. Canvas is the next generation of learning management systems and it's all to the good. I'd never gone all in on a learning management system ever, until I hit Canvas.
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