From file storage to active learning: how Pymble made Canvas an interactive learning space

Pymble Ladies’ College, on Sydney’s North Shore, is known for pairing academic excellence with a strong focus on preparing students for the future. To support that mission, the school adopted Canvas as a central hub for teaching and learning, giving students and staff an engaging, connected space for lessons, resources and collaboration.

Over time, though, the platform was often used mainly as a place to store files. While this made materials easy to access, it didn’t always make the most of what Canvas could offer for interaction and engagement.

Digital learning leader Christine Cassidy, along with her colleague Blythe Cassidy, wanted to help staff see what was possible. Teachers were open to new approaches but had limited time to design online activities and hadn’t always had targeted training in building engaging digital environments.

“A lot of our staff just didn’t understand what they could achieve with a Canvas course,” Christine said.

The digital learning team saw their role as bridging that gap, making it easier for staff to create interactive learning experiences without adding to their workload.

When the school began planning professional learning to build staff confidence in using artificial intelligence (AI) with students, Christine and Blythe recognised it as the perfect chance to do both at the same time. They could deliver AI training while also modelling strong course design in Canvas.

By delivering the program in Canvas, they could give staff a direct experience of a well-structured, visually appealing and interactive course while they focused on learning about AI.

AI Champions introduced staff to AI concepts such as ethics, creative applications and research tools. The course was self-paced in Canvas, supported by small group discussions of seven to eight participants, and encouraged exploration of AI tools in a practical context.

The design followed Merrill’s First Principles of Instruction and prioritised user experience through interactive elements, personalised options, accessible content and regular feedback. Staff saw examples of:

• Video content featuring familiar faces from the school
• Discussion boards that encouraged collaboration
• Pop-ups and hotspots to guide navigation
• Collapsible tabs and callouts for key information

Practical tips, like resizing images or embedding videos, were woven into the content so staff could pick up skills naturally. These examples showed what Canvas could offer without requiring a separate training session.

“We wanted to show people how easily they could collaborate using Canvas, and we did,” Christine explained.

The course achieved its main goal of helping staff feel more confident in exploring AI with their students. At the same time, it gave them a clear, hands-on example of how Canvas can support interactive and collaborative learning. Many adapted ideas from AI Champions into their own courses, adding more student-centred elements and interactive features.

Collaboration between staff also increased, with teachers sharing ideas and refining their approaches together. Christine noted that this active engagement was central to fostering creativity and problem-solving.

By pairing quality instructional design with best practices in Canvas, AI Champions shifted the platform’s role at Pymble from a resource repository to an engaging space for teaching and learning. The impact came from letting teachers learn by doing, rather than adding another training session to their schedules. It gave them practical ideas they could apply straight away and showed that meaningful change can happen in the flow of everyday work.

For Pymble, it was a win on two fronts: building staff confidence in AI and sparking new ways to create online learning that connects with students. It’s an approach other schools can adapt to reframe how Canvas is used, encouraging adoption and showing time-poor teachers that creating an engaging course doesn’t have to be complicated or time-consuming.