To Template or NOT to Template?

My name is Aaron Lundster, and I am the coordinator of Canvas, an online curriculum for Warren township, and we're located on the east side of Indianapolis, Indiana, or K twelve District, about twelve thousand students, told in our in our district. We have about fifteen different schools, nine elementary, three intermediate, high school, career Center, online academy, alternative school, adult ed, I think that's all of our buildings, I think. A little bit about me, this is my I hate to say this, but this is my thirtieth year in education. I just started today's our first day of school for the kids. But this is my never thought I'd get there to be thirty years in education. I spent twenty years in the middle school.

I know. Know, middle school, math, eighth grade math, pre algebra, algebra, and geometry. Never a moment. It was an adventure, but I loved every minute of it. I spent five as a e learning and information specialist after I left the classroom at the high school across the street.

So it was nice to see the students I had in eighth I would see them in the high school. And it was nice to see a change. When they when I saw them in the hallway or they came to visit me in the in my office, or the occasional one that would come see me and say, I'm late. Can you walk me to class? So I'm not tardy. Yeah.

Okay. This is my fifth year as a Canvas admin, in Warren. I taught during those times I was teaching middle school. I also taught summer school online. And then I am a Canvas certified educator.

Canvas certified technical admin, and I also facilitate both of those series of courses And I'm also a contract trainer. So I've done some training for Canvas as well. If you've done any of the webinars in the training portal. You may have heard me on some of those, because I do some of those as well. And then I'm also on Apple certified coach.

I have also been married for twenty nine years. My wife isn't registered nurse. My son is a fifth year senior. He finally figured out what he wants to do. He's studying biology.

And you can tell he's very excited about having his picture taken. And that was about two months ago. He's decided to let his hair, and it's now middle of his back now. And we have a eleven year old, Shelby, who my wife swore eleven years ago, it's an outside dog. He now sleeps at the foot of our bed and has since the second day we brought same home.

Today, what I want to take you through our adventure with templating to help you kind of make a decision as if has anybody does anybody use a a template? Okay. I'll show you some our templates. All of the templates that I use or that my district has used are on the commons. So you are welcome if they're public. Just search for my name.

You're welcome to download and use those. I put them on the comments. Feel free to use those. Like I said, we're on the east side of Indianapolis, Indianapolis, kind the suburb. I know some schools are like counties.

We're a Marion County, but we're on the east side. We have districts around we call it the doughnut there in Indianapolis. We're around the doughnut there. So our Canvas journey, we started back in twenty nineteen. I started as a Canvas admin in September, they had already adopted Canvas, and before I got there.

So this They were starting their first full year with Canvas. I was starting my first full year as a Canvas admin. So we were both learning to get We spent the fall, just training teachers how to get into Canvas, make a quiz, get your there was no template. There was nothing. We didn't have a plan for a template.

Grades nine through twelve at the end of this first semester, will be required to have all of their courses in Canvas and be ready for our wonderful Indiana snow days that might come in January. And so that was the plan. Middle school then would start Canvas in the spring. And then the next year or the next year, the elementary would come in. Plan b.

March came along and we needed everybody in Canvas. K through twelve. So we provided training, growing with Canvas, getting everybody in. I create we I went in through growing a Canvas. I modified it.

So it it's more for our district. And that's I have that on the comments. You're welcome down that as well. But then towards the end of the spring semester, we talking about a template. And for me, I was still in my teacher mode.

I was still like, no, you're not gonna tell me what to do in my classroom. This is I wanna do what I wanna do. And so I was still trying to I was still thinking as a teacher, that this is my classroom, I want to go through, and I want to make my own template. I know what my kids need, and so I wanna make that template for them. However, I had to stop and I had to stop and think about that, because I'm not I wasn't in the teacher mode anymore.

And so I had to step back and I had to think, okay, This is not about what I want because I had five years of Canvas experience before I came to Warren. The teachers in my district, they were just getting started. I mean, they had it some just like a month or two. And so they were not only having to pivot from in person to virtual learning canvas, all of the instance of Canvas, they were now how are they going to navigate Canvas, how are they going to get the kids in there? And so I had to I had to stop and think, okay. Let's think about this.

What's best for the teachers, what's best for the students, what's best for the parents, What's gonna make it easier on them as we get ready for the twenty one, twenty two school year when we were we knew we were gonna have to go virtual or something was gonna go virtual. So during that spring, of the of twenty twenty one, I think. During the twenty twenty me. I don't know, whatever year it was. We started thinking about the template.

And so we came up with a template that we were going to use. We were like, okay, what do we need? What do we need? What is our template going to look like? How is it going to be the easiest for grades K through twelve to manage Canvas when they're at home? And so we had to think about a template. So we came up with the template over here on the right. It had the school banner on it. The district banner at the top.

Then we did each month, and each month linked to a page that add, a page for them. So they could click on January. They could click on January fourth and they were right into what they needed to do. They could list everything for the the day that they needed to do. So we were trying to think about how is this going to what's the best way that this is going to look? And so during that year, I noticed that as time training teachers in the fall with the new teachers as we had about a hundred and twenty in the fall come in I always saw the new teachers when I showed them this template.

Well, first, you could see the they were just so freaked out coming in in the fall. When I showed him this template and I said you don't have to worry about designing your course, it's done for you. I could just see the relief on their face. And it started really clicking to me that, okay, this is what we needed to do. We needed a template for the teachers.

And so it made it easier for the new teachers because they didn't have to worry about because a lot of them would come out and when did the trainings. They all knew Canvas as a student. They didn't know it as a teacher. And so they didn't have to worry about creating and designing and make sure everything was correct. The way when they they came in.

All they had to worry about was their content and worry about putting things on the the page for them. So that's what we we started talking about. And so then I started showing the seasoned teachers have been in warring before. I'm like, oh, they're not this is not going to go over well. If we hand it to them and say, this is a temple that we want you to use.

And I was pleasantly surprised that they were appreciative too because they were the same boat as the new teachers because they were just learning canvas as well. So the new teachers and the seasoned teachers were they were together on So it wasn't something that I was thinking, okay, the teacher's been there five years, ten years, fifteen years, they're they're not going to want to do this. But they did they did. They liked it. They didn't have to worry about designing their course.

They didn't have to worry about making the buttons, they didn't have to worry about the banners, they didn't have to worry about all of that stuff. All they had to worry about was creating the content for the student when they came to class or when they met them virtually. So the seasoned teachers, the new teachers, they were all in the same place. And then we also thought Okay. Well, it also now is going to work for parents and caregivers because if you have a student Kindergarten in at Brookview at our school or at Stoneybrook at the middle school at the high school, they're all gonna see the same thing.

They're all gonna know where to go to navigate to their lessons, especially since the teachers weren't there, they weren't there in person for the teachers to show them where to go and where to click. Being virtual, all the teacher said had to do is say click on January, click on the date, there's your lessons. So it made it easier for the parents they knew, no matter what school they were in, no matter what grade level they were in, they there was a consistency there between the schools, and that it really started making sense to me that, okay, this was a good thing. At least it wasn't the wifi. So that's what we kind of it kind of started clicking to me that a template wasn't such a bad thing.

And we we gave them the some of my teachers, they jumped right in, and they went in, they were changing things, but it looked the same. We told them, you can add more buttons down there if you like, but the it was kinda like the way we explained it to him was, this is your front door. Everybody it goes to the same front door, but once you get inside, your house is going to look different. And that's fine. And then that started making sense to them.

So at the end of that first year, we were like, okay, let's go back, we had to throw this template together during the summer. So we started going back through in I was in the spring. I when I went to the buildings at the end of the year, because I visited every building at the end of the year to help finish out the school and so I was asking him, what do you like about the template? What do you not like about the template? And they said, well, I don't really like, we don't really the kids having to scroll all the way down to find the course info and the teacher info at the bottom of the page. And we would also like a link at the top that says zoom so they can go right to the zoom link. They didn't have to go into the date to find the zoom link.

So we took those things and we made a template, we changed that template. So for the next year, we also they also said, well, I'd really like to make a few changes, make it really for my class. And I said, okay, that's fine. So our template maybe there it is. Our template for second year, we changed it a little bit.

We put all them at the top. We made some different banners. We provide it a link to a parent and caregiver support course. It's public. That way, the parents could go in.

It has videos. We haven't English and Spanish. So they could go in and find that. We also they also wanted a link to their school so that they could go in and they could go to the school website. So we we put that button on there for him as well.

We changed meet your teacher and class information. We moved those to the top. We still kept our buttons the same, but then we went And because we were black and gold days, we had some in person, some and then they would switch. So we did black and gold days. We made a template and I thought, okay, if they want to and I was out, I was doing all my research, going through the community, going through the guides, and everybody was including a teacher module that would describe how to how to add create your own banner, how to create your own button, how to update that, how to we had templates for them for the the daily calendar.

So they could just use those templates and replace them. We had templates for so they could use an assignment template. So we had all of those things for them, but I noticed at the end of the year, all those hours that I spent making those templates, I still got the phone calls. How do I make this button? How do I want to add this? How do I do that? And I was like, after the first few phone calls, I would say, oh, it's it's in the module. Just go to the unpublished module, and it walks you through direction.

And then second year Canvas admin, I thought, okay, you can follow them. They would still call me and say, can you just walk yes, I will come I'll come to your building. Let's zoom. I'll come down and help you. That's no problem.

So we then decided Okay. This was okay for five through twelve, but it needed to look a little bit different for our element And so we went through and we changed our elementary buttons, we made them a little bit easier for them to find. The elementary teachers are saying, especially the the the littles that couldn't read yet, and I didn't even think about that because I was a I'm a five through twelve teacher. I didn't think of that. So we went in and we put icons so that they would just say, click January or find the snowflake.

Go to February or find the heart. And so we put those on there. We still had the directions if they wanted to change the buttons and all those kind of things. But Again, it didn't really. So the next year when I changed the template, I took that entire module out.

It's not even in the the template anymore. I made them it's simplified for the t after four years, those that know how to change the the buttons and the banners, they they can do that. But it was a growing experience every year. Our template has not remained the same name since the first time we made it. It's always changed.

As I go through and I help the teacher's doing, I wish it would have this. I wish it would have this. I just got an email this morning from an orchestra teacher that said, can we the template can we make one that's specific for performing arts. I was like, okay. Tell me more.

He's gonna send me an email when I get back. We're gonna meet and he's we're gonna come up with something for performing arts. No idea what that's gonna look like, but I'm sure we'll figure it out. So we what another thing that the elementary decided they wanted after that first or second year was because it semester, I sent them a new home page, a new module that had the second semester in there, and they had to import it. And I thought I had made great directions, videos.

Here's how you switch over the page. Here's how you do this. I gave them a one page document. I gave them a video, and and it's I still ended up going to the schools. And I said, okay.

Well, what make what would make it easier for you? And the majority of the teacher said, let's put all of the dates on the calendar at the beginning of the year. I was like, okay, we can do that. So we created a calendar that had all the buttons for the entire semester on the front page, and then they just deleted the months as they went through if they didn't need them anymore, which, again, that sense to me. But like I said, we change that every semester. Then at the fall twenty one.

My high school teachers came to me and said, you know, especially the the career center teachers. PE teachers came to me and they said, we don't like the daily one because we we have to put things on there. We're working on a project that's in the entire week. I don't want to have to keep because and paste and everything. I said, okay, tell me more.

What do you want? Can we make a weekly template? Like, okay. So let's take a look at that. So then we made a weekly template for the high school. So it had the weeks. They click on January through through seventh.

They get the table on right. They fill in everything they want for the week. So they have today's agenda, assigned any announcements, reminders, down at the bottom, resources. So if they needed to link this was before we have things it to Canvas. If they needed to link to their textbook, if they needed to link to a specific document that they were using, if they needed to link to a specific website they were gonna use the whole week.

If, my, construction trades teachers, he had, images and he had diagrams and he had manuals that they were using for the whole week. He linked those down there at the bottom for them. So everything they needed was for the the week. We did and I'll show you this one here because I'm gonna show you each of these live what they actually look like. But they also some teachers wanted a monthly one where they had all four weeks on a page.

Not my favorite. Because they would still fill it in like a day, and so they would have to there's all kind of scrolling. And I would I try to encourage them you know, you don't have to put everything linked to the video. I said, if you're gonna put everything on there for a day, just use the daily one. So you have just one day on because if you're filling in the month and each one of these boxes, they're gonna keep getting bigger and bigger and bigger and kids are gonna have to scroll to the bottom.

They're like, oh, well, that makes sense. So then they switch back to the the daily one. But the majority of my high school teachers will use the weekly template. The majority of in the middle school, most of them use the daily, and except for the the PE teachers, they will use the weekly one because they'll say, okay, we're in the pool this week, we're in the gym this week, on the track this week, so they can put everything for the week on there, and then they don't have to make that change every day. They can put it up for the week.

They still send the kids back. If it's an e learning day, they have their lessons for the e learning day, whatever they need to do. But they have that week in there, and it made so much more sense to them. Now, we did change the templates a little bit for the coming school year. We still have the daily template.

We still have The K four template, kinda, we changed that a little bit for them, and the weekly template. One of my teachers at the career center. I think it was last year. He was showing me the template, and he had tabs across the top for the months. And I was like, dude, how did you do that? And so he showed me the HTML code that he used.

Now the good thing about that is we are nine through twelve. We're Chromebook. So we don't have to worry about those tavern. They don't show up on the iPads. Our k three eight buildings are iPads.

Well, eighth grade is this year, but we don't use that. I have a different tab for the daily one or for the weekly one for the iPads. And so I just when I help the PE teachers, they're because they're the only ones that use the the weekly one I just show them how to to switch to the iPad friendly one so they can get the months or the weeks. But so we came up with death. I think it's this one.

So our high school one still we have the tabs across the box So now they can go in January, February, March, April, May. They can, have those weeks there at the bottom. And during the spring, they came to me and they said, okay. How do I get January is always the first month that's popping up? How do I get so that if I'm in February, the default view is February. How do I get so that whatever month I'm on we that's the one that's the default view.

And I was like, that's a good question. So I went in, and it's just a matter of copying the banner and moving it to the bottom. So I made the directions, and showed a couple of the teachers now that we've had it for five years, those directions, they're made more sense. And were able to move it. So now in when February is up, they'll move January to the end.

In February be the default one at the top. So they can still get back to January if they need to. February then, we'll get moved to the end each month. And I send out a reminder on the last Friday of the month. And I'll say, okay, or the last week, I'll send out reminders.

Next week starts new month. If you need help switching out your tabs, send me an email and either tell me you want to meet so I can show you how to do it or just in the email say, do it for me. And so I say, after I sent those out, I maybe had to meet with two or three teachers, and most them just said, just do it for me. It's easier for you to do it, so then I I don't have to worry about not getting everything mixed up. The five twelve template is the same.

The daily one looks a little bit different. We've simplified the navigation on the home page. We still have the days July to missed, they still click on them, still goes the same way. But like I said, each year that we use this template, it changes a little bit more. With whatever the teachers need, I go in and I make that change.

And I usually have it ready them the during the well, during the last before the last week of the semester. That way, can get it imported into their sandbox, they get all their content moved over when I'm there in their building, and then they have to do before they because their courses are usually ready for them before they go home for break. All they have to do then on the first day back is hit publish, and they're good to go. But I can't from where I started with the templates, to where we are now. This has made so much more sense.

It's made the teacher's lives a whole lot easier. Because they can go to the commons, they can download it, and they're ready to go. The only issue that we have that I have is that and I had one teacher this morning. So I click on January and it's the week of, it's it's just giving me a blank page. And my first question is, did you change the title of the page? And I'm like, oh, yeah.

I said, well, that broke the link. And so I go back and just relink it for him. I'm like, okay, then I I know not to do that again. But that's really the only issues that we have with the template. Now, let me show you the this is our new elementary template, we made it even simpler for them.

So here's our elementary template, and then works on the iPads. So now all the teachers have to do, we have meet your teacher. We have you will learn. So they know this is what I'm gonna learn this year. Meet your teacher.

They put, on that page, they put a welcome menu. I'm gonna welcome a welcome video that walks them through. It also they do a typed out one. And then they can go in, and they say click on the school bus, school bus opens, and there's the months. And so now they have the template.

They can go in here. They click on July. Hopefully, Thinking, thinking. While this is going, the plan this year to make it easier the teachers was to use the template feature and template this into every elementary course. Well, didn't quite work the way I wanted it because I was moving or reorganizing, like, the account this summer, thought I had everything set up when I was moving my elementary subaccounts underneath just a K four building.

Forgot to click one box where it says over what is it override when you do the CSV report, the one that says override SIS, and then the one underneath that, it says process as a SIS, forget the name of it. Forgot to check that box. So on July seventeenth when the courses were put back in, it moved them all back out of my subaccount. So now I'm making visits next week. So I know next time then I need to check that one little box, and then all of the templates will be there for the teachers.

It's still spinning. So it has really streamlined And so the teachers, they will use this over the next because our first e learning day is September sixth, I think seventh, whatever the Tuesday is after Labor Day. That's our first e learning day. So my teachers, they use this the k four teachers, they use this as kind of a teaching. They start their calendar time.

And so they'll put things on the calendar to start teaching them how to find dates on the calendar, how to find lessons on the calendar, that's nothing gonna be very detail, but they will use that to or to help their the students as they're getting ready. Our five through twelve let's see if it's gonna work. Spinning. Let's go back here and stop this one. Maybe.

While this is thinking, is any is there any questions? Yes. I am the about the better distribution of fenlates. Got it. Okay. Feature of the cameras? I was my plan was to use the the template feature for the elementary because they all use daily, but that didn't work so well.

So what we've done in the past is I put on the commons, especially the five through twelve because they have the daily and the weekly that they can choose from. And so I put those the commons and then they can pull in whichever one they wanna use. And there was no friction? Yeah. No. It was.

Now it took the first year. I went around, and each one, they were able and helped whoever needed help. I make a go to every building every day. So next week, I'm in five different buildings. Just getting them set up.

The majority of the teachers, I also sent one page document. Here's how you import from the commons. Here's a video how to import from the commons. Because we simplify the template so that we I took out all the stuff about creating new banners and new buttons and all those kinda things. It was just a matter of import the template into your course.

That was the video. And So I would say seventy five percent of the teachers. Nah, I would say about ninety five percent of the teachers. They they're good with choosing whatever template they want. And I always have them in the directions.

I always tell them before they import well, at the end of the semester, when they're saving their content to a sandbox box, I tell them save only quizzes, announcements, discussions, do not save any pages that have calendar dates on them. Because we've learned the hard way that if they save everything, and then import everything, the calendars get all mixed up, the dates. And so I've learned that when I show them how to close out the semester, we only put quizzes alignments. We don't do any pages unless they have those specific ones. And most of the time, I'll take them to the modules and we'll just import whatever modules and we'll skip over the calendar module so that they don't accidentally import that one.

But the majority of the teachers, we put them all in the comments and let them download from the comments. I have not tried that yet. I know I use Blueprints for my online academy, and so I I can't because the content that they get from strong mind is already in a blueprint course, and so I can't associate them with two different ones. So the online academy, they have to go to the commons and get theirs. With The five through twelve because they can choose weekly or monthly, And I don't know who's gonna choose because sometimes one teacher will choose weekly this year, this year, then they'll like, nah, I didn't like that the first semester.

So I'm gonna go back to shaling one. To me, it was easier, just for them to be able to go to the commons and choose what they would like. But I am going to now that I know what I did wrong, I am going to use the template feature for the k four because they only use the day templates. Yep. When you say template feature that's setting up a course template in a summary? Yes.

Mhmm. Yep. Mhmm. Yeah. You can only lock on blueprint.

And now in our district, we have, all student courses, all staff courses, graduation courses, three six, the cast courses. So I have to create templates for each one. Well, the the upload templates from the admin button doesn't work. So I create templates like and I make them blueprints because I created the settings and all the course features for them. And then we access IDs to them and say, these courses get these identified.

So, like, Aaron was talking about the templates, you just take a step we're we're a larger district than Karen. I think so. Yeah. And we don't want we don't want objects. I mean, because we the and most of the creating home, but you are a district that creates curriculum.

You could lock the volume. Cali opt out to look at black objects, and teachers start to tinker around the course and they don't change the name of the module and update the module to screw them. So And to be honest, I'm I'm in that learning curve still because even though this is my fifth year, My first three years was chaos. And so I'm still after going through the the CCTA course for the certified technical admin, I'm finally understanding and learning all of those, and I may end up using blueprints later on. We all recreate your courses every time, like, around those, you're putting you give the base template.

They read them all their data and all this stuff. Yes. That's the one thing we found. We started blueprinting our e learning courses to put all of our required information out. Mhmm.

And for for us, we locked those pages to best control by the department, not the instructor. Now we do get a couple pages that are structured, able to, but when Argyz is dealing with a common force or a copy from force every semester, and now it duplicates everything. Mhmm. So when you start getting a bunch of donors or overwriting files. I think cameras just had a change.

It doesn't motor write and file one of those number after. So now we have a a course with number five, because it's, you know, we put a new template on the new courses, but they copied the old course of five times already. So Yeah. And we thought about using blueprints because we have our curriculum guides, and we wanted to put the curriculum in each course. So they had that in each course, but then our district decided they were going back to the fashioned way.

They were they redid the curriculum guide, took all the links out, and they printed copies, and they're delivering up to all the teachers. Yeah. Yeah. So in this, from a teacher's perspective, go through the steps. For, like, importing? Yeah.

I can do that. We'll cross my fingers that our Wi Fi is working. So let me see. Let me move it over here so I can see. And what I did do for my teachers was when I do upload it to the common I do, check the featured option.

So it's the first three things they see. So I don't have searched through the commons to find their template. It's the first thing they see. When you go to settings, when you're uploading to the common when you're filling in all the information, there's a it's like a toggle that says featured comment, their content. And so that keeps it at the beginning of the commons.

Yes. And I always share it with my domain, and then I also make it public. So if anybody else wants it, they can have it. Now, what we did And like I said, things change. One thing we did, I did learn, like, two weeks before school, my, I'm not sure we're gonna get to it.

My, online academy decided they wanted to go K eight with the Canvas for elementary dash So we had to redo these templates for them. And so that changed things. And so this is our first year with a template with C4E. So we're gonna see how that goes and what I need to change for the following year. But it looks we're kind of stuck here.

But if we go back, just kind of skip through here real quick. But like I said, you want any of those templates, just search for my name on the commons, and you're welcome to to import them, use them whatever you wanna do And I always change mine at the end of this semester. So if you like the weekly one, but you need the new dates, waiting till like the second week of December, and you'll be there. But otherwise, here's my contact information. Feel free to reach out with an email.

If you have questions, That's my Twitter or whatever it is now. But you're welcome to shoot me an email, and I'm happy answer questions. Yeah. So, Eric, just put a little bit of perspective on this. How much of your time do you spend working on capital c? The first year a lot.

From now on, I can probably get a template done in an hour, because I just take what I've done in the past, copy it and just rename the pages, and it I can probably have it done in an hour. So at the end of the semester, the end of the year, that a couple of days project, not a couple of weeks project. Yeah. And at the end of the year, my teachers go home Memorial Day I go through June fifteenth. So I have those two extra weeks where I can finish the template.

I usually tell them at the end of the year, the one will be ready the first week of June. That gives me those days to get those done. Well, I appreciate everyone. Yeah. Go ahead.

No. You're fine. Just so curious. Alright. The teachers embed for the assignments within the calendar figure? What do you have a link for each date? Each date goes to a page.

Yes. Right. And I've learned to put all those in one module. Instead of doing a module, I beginning I did a module for each month, that was a pain. So I just did one module, put all the calendar in one module, and then it's at the bottom of the page, and they can use all the mod create their modules and put those at the top. Alright. Well, thanks for coming, and have a good one.