Wait! My LMS Can Do What?

Alright. I think we're gonna go ahead and get the show on the road. It is great to see you all. The, the QR code will be up here for a little while if you haven't had a chance to scan it. We'll also give you there's also a bit ly link, bit dot lead forward slash emptySS canvas if you'd rather go that route. But Let's get the show on the road here.

So bless you. Alright. It is so great to see you. My name is Brian Reed. I am with The Rockwood school district, in Saint Louis, Missouri.

We service about twenty three thousand kiddos, a couple thousand staff, and we are all in on Canvas. Especially at the secondary level. And so, we'll we'll share more about it with ourselves and our work that we do, of course, during the the presentation. And, you know, feel free at the end to tickle our brains with questions. We would love to share, what we know and also learn from you through the questions you might guess.

And I'm Maria Tenny, and, I also work for the Rockwood School District. Oh, okay. Okay. I'm Maria Tenny, and I also work for the Rockwood School District along with Brian. And, so today we'll share with you some of the resources that we've made for our staff as well as other people, to just support everybody and support our students with Canvas.

Awesome. So so just like any course, there's always a landing page. And so, we have a templated landing page and actually course for every single course that we offer in Rockwood. We currently have built over a thousand some odd courses. We do blueprint.

We also template as well. And so there is a common theme and structure, experience whenever you're in canvas. And so The landing page that you'll see when you go to our course is actually set up exactly what our teachers and students see. And so the the course information page the getting started piece is always at the top, and that's that came out of like some QM training that Marie and I attended just a really quick way to to tell students where to start clicking around. Right? And so it seems sort of simple, but it sometimes they do need that, that, that instruction.

And so we have a a spot for a course description, and then the central course outcomes which we work with the curriculum department to input all of that information in. And so every single course that we push out will have that information pre populated. With teacher information, this is a section we do ask the teachers to customize. And so for your purposes, our contact information is there as well. Feel free to to shout us out on Twitter or email us.

Whatever you might want to do with that if we can support you in any way. There's a course resource section. And so since today is about supporting the whole learner, through Canvas, not just the content piece. We already prepopulated this with some resources for you. Some things we're gonna allude to, you know, talk about MTSS and SEL and SD and some things like that, but there's links there for your own learning later.

Neticate, we put this in every course too. Just a gentle reminder to the kiddos. Here's how you behave and interact on the course as a good digital citizen. Some academic help. We do have a help desk as well, and there's technology help.

There's a virtual locker that kiddos can click on. There has a list of district approved resources. And so if they're building a project of some kind and they need some instruction or some guidance, they can click on the virtual locker and get that. Our academic integrity policy, including sort of generic, way to handle AI, in the classroom and then our accessibility services. And so we we, linked out to some of the VPAD information from some of the tools that we And so that's on every course on the landing page.

We ask the teachers not to touch that landing page, except for the two portions that they get to customize. Alright. The the module section is where we're gonna go next. And so And every course we push out, which you won't see on this one, but you'll see maybe maybe later or if you've attended the session, that I had the honor of presenting with city labs yesterday, we include pre populated content for the teachers. Right? And so it's not just the content for their curriculum, but we also include some some strategies and how to best leverage canvas and things they can do with the kiddos at the beginning of the school year.

And so all of that's usually prepopulated in these courses along with our templates, our page templates, assignment templates, discussion templates, and things of that nature. But today, the first thing you're gonna see in here is the note taking. And so this is for you if you like to keep digital notes This is also a great strategy to use with your own students, but just having a spot where the kiddos can go for a digital version of a note taking document. You know, if we were presenting in our districts, sometimes we'll even print these out and give them the option of of taking notes either analog or digital. And so when you click on it, you'll be forced to make a copy.

And the the major sections, you'll see if you choose to go down this road is basically every module that we have in today's presentation. Has its own section in the digital notes. And so just another way to organize, you know, stay, within what we're presenting, stay on target, on task, whatever, if it works for you. If it doesn't work for you, that's okay too. It is just a strategy.

Again, supporting the whole learner, which I would be you all. Alright. So getting into the nitty gritty here. And so MTSS and Education, you know, we love our acronyms. And so, if you've heard of the MTSS acronym, it is the tie tiered systems of support.

It is basically what it is you do in the classroom to support the kiddos. And it it's at tier one intervention. Right? Our best teaching practices things of that nature. There's also a tier two and tier three where you start pulling in resources that are external from the classroom, administrators, counselors, parents, other resource, personnel and things like that. But we're gonna focus on on basically tier one for a little while, to make sure we have a common understanding of what tier one is.

We we went ahead and actually pulled together some research. Again, linked on that course information page. But basically, the mission of MTSS is ensuring high levels of learning for all students. Right? Regardless of of what, they they bring with them to the classroom, who they are, whatever. We're trying to reach every student.

And so, high levels, of course, we kind of unpack that a little bit. Basically, it is grade level or better. Right? And then if they're not quite performing at grade level or better, where can we pull in some of that extra support, that enrichment. Right? And so making sure that the strategies we use are equitable, they're accessible, they're they're for their fair, right? And they meet the kids where they are, but then also encourage them to grow. Some fundamental assumptions of multi tiered systems of support It's make again seem like common sense, but it's always great to have a little reminder that not all kids learn in the same way.

Just like not all teachers teach same way. Right? They gotta meet them where they are, individualize that. They don't learn at the same speed or have the same prior knowledge, our background, are the same skills. What I really found that really kind of hits home to me too is is is the fact that I have to remember that they have a life outside of school. And so their experiences outside of the classroom are still brought in to the classroom with them.

And so sometimes those are counterproductive experiences that are just weighing on them or that they're dealing with. And so, just kind of working through some of some of that to the best of our ability supporting them. And then virtually, we all have to acknowledge that we start our days with the best intent. We all start every single day trying to do the best weekend. Right? And so honoring that work, especially with our colleagues, making sure that we assume that everybody is trying to do the best, to to to to support the kiddos And then, of course, not all teachers have the same knowledge, and skills either recognizing that.

Okay. The the the next piece here is, again, that tier one intervention, that guaranteed viable accessible curriculum and show making sure that we do whatever we can to scaffold that learning for those kiddos, right? And so if that means, you know, breaking things down into smaller chunks or whatever we need to do to meet them where they are, but then showing them how to grow with that knowledge. That's what MTSS is all about. You know, leveraging the right tools and and and making sure that that we're not doing a one script fits all sort of approach. Okay? And then, of course, keeping in mind where they're going, right, preparing them for the next level.

And so one of the questions that Marie and I have been asked a lot is Well, in some ways, this could be kind of a daunting experience trying to meet where every kids are depending on your caseload, depending on what supports you might have in your own districts. And so We found this particular website. PBIS has a lot of great resources, for tier one intervention, not just with content. But also with social emotional support and executive functioning support and things of that nature. But what I really appreciated about this is not only the suggestions has kinda reminded me of like the Kagan strategies back in the day, the cooperative learning, you know, we gotta put out the resources, there's a whole list of things.

But what's nice about this is that not only are they suggestions, but when you unpack them and I'll just click on one. I'll just pick this one. I don't know. It tells you basically the the why should I do it When should I do it and how should I do it? And so, and plus more resource that support beyond that. And so if you're looking for different strategies to work with your kiddos and you're not sure when to do it or how it could look, this website really, really helps with that.

And and we focused on tier one. There's also tier two and tier three where it does the same idea. But, I definitely encourage you to give it a look. It's worth it's worth spending some time investigating that. And we're not going to cover this together, but there are, other activities in this course always labeled with extension activities that could just extend your own learning whenever you have a chance to go through those.

So, with that, I'm gonna hit next. Awesome. And so Canvas, how does Canvas support MTSS academic with academic support? And so One of the ways it does this is, of course, having this, one stop shop, right, to to students can demonstrate their learning. It's an equitable access. Right? Everybody's going to the same hub.

The content is there. With the integration tools, whether they need the immersive reader or a translation service or whatever the case may be, but it's all in one place. So that accessibility is is is common. It's also they're also able to leverage the different tools. Right? You you can submit a video.

You can submit an audio. You can submit a a text entry. Whatever the case would be, there's multiple ways to show what they know. Right? And so that's that's one of the major benefits to having Canvas when it comes to supporting academic, success in the classroom. So I and the last thing for me before I hand it over is quality course design.

Right? And so if you've ever gotten the privilege of designing courses, thinking through what this could look like for your for your district. Having the the the navigation be very similar and having even the look and feel be similar That's that's what it takes for quality course design. And so what we did for our teachers is we kind of put together an info graph of the different tools that Canvas offers. Pages, assignments, submission types, different ideas they could do with those, even discussion boards, new quizzes and studio. We do have studio in our instance of canvas as well.

And so just basically advertising what it is they can do with those, And so as they're thinking through content design with us, because we do a lot of heavy lifting with the content design, but as we work with our teachers, they can actually be more specific. Oh, this wanna go down the road and see what studio can do here with this, or this looks like a great use of an assignment, or whatever the case may be. Right? And so that all ties back to that quality course design. Which leads to that equitable, viable, education that we were talking about just a few minutes ago. We're not going to watch the video on UDL.

Again, that's an extension but if you wanna learn more about that universal design, feel free to to watch that later on at your leisure. And so with that, just a couple of quick examples. One of the things that we love using Canvas for is like on the fly formatives. Right? Just quickly checking in with those kiddos and seeing where they are at any given moment. And so you can really quickly leverage these in Canvas.

These are just really quick examples. You can just duplicate over and over and over and put them in whatever you want. And so one of them is called brain dump. You put this on the board. Maybe you even write the topic on a smart board or somewhere else, but this is all they see.

Write down everything you know about blah blah blah. Oh, you have to a minute and a half. Right? You can also do let's see if this works right. Hopefully, the tweet all about it. So the activity where you're giving them a certain number of characters where they have to summarize something or, tell about what they just learned or what they understood from a given concept.

Right? Again, giving them the option of uploading it as a media file or or a text entry of some or or a document. Explain your understanding. Right? So it's a very quick exit ticket. That's all it is, but it's so simple to do in Canvas because you can just duplicate the same assignment over and over and over. Even images, especially now that you can drag and drop images into the rich content editor, that's huge.

And so, you know, tell us how you feel about a topic, green light, green light, yellow light, red light, that kind of thing. And so, this one you're not going to see in the course, but you could even set up a quick quiz if you really wanted to, that shows some of the same things. If you really wanna collect that data and then tie it into the analytics that you can you can track with Canvas that way. Right? So, there's multiple multiple ways to do, and I don't know if this is gonna Yeah. Okay.

I tell you what, we're gonna not let that load, but just know that you can definitely do a lot of different things. Very, very quickly. Right? It doesn't have to be these long drawn out sort of assignments. So, alright, I'm gonna step aside. So Brian talked, you know, about using Canvas for course content, and then also for collection of evidence of learning.

And that's the thing I think a lot of times people think something has to be done way in advance, but we showed you how you know, those fast formatives. I know as a teacher, like, you know, by the end of the day, when you do those exit slips and you have like a hundred stacks of paper on your desk, you know, something like this really helps with that data. But now I'm gonna talk about some ways that Canvas and by using a learning management system that it enhances those assessment strategies. You might not have all these advantages if you're using something outside of Canvas for your learners. So one of the things that we like to push with our teachers is using blended discussions.

So a lot of people, I think, post pandemic kind of thought like, oh, it's an either or when it comes to discussion, either I'm gonna have an in class discussion, or I'm gonna have a discussion on Canvas But we really prefer the use of blended discussions. And the reason for this is if you have an in class discussion, then all students don't necessarily have to come up with a creative idea on their own because they can kinda, you know, maybe sit back a little bit and wait for someone else to share. However, whenever we use that option that they have to put in their own response before they can see another student's response, all students participate And then that makes them accountable for original ideas as well. But then there's also I mean, you all had the moment. I mean, it's probably happened to you or your students where they've been sitting there with their hand raised for how long while you're calling other other students, and when it gets to them, and they, like, purely really have forgotten, you know, what they were gonna share.

Versus if it's in Canvas form, we're not gonna run into that. It keeps a record of student understanding for reflection and coaching. That way, you know what was their original thought. But the other thing, I know I had some awesome students who just weren't the type to share in front of the classroom. And this gives you an opportunity to hear what their thinking is as well and not just those students who are always the ones to raise their hand to, go ahead and participate.

And for the kid who's shy to present in front of class, it really helps you to maybe give them the ability to know that, hey, when she calls on me, she's gonna know that I'm right already. Cause you could find look through those responses as the kids are giving them and say, like, Oh, you know, I see, Mario. I see that you shared the following. So let's see. Like, Tell me more about that.

But you can really guide those discussions so that they don't go off in like a million tangents that you weren't quite planning on going that day. If you can already see what the student was thinking. And, like, I know, like, sometimes you have that student, they always wanna share, but sometimes they have those struggles but you know you're gonna call on them when they're right that day. You know, so that they can feel successful in your classroom. So these are some reasons to do blended discussions.

And here's just an example that we're putting in here of our discussion, template that we put in here for students, whenever we're sharing an class. And once again, we have like a model that explains that and stuff. But an example for you guys to look at later, if you would want an example of how someone else does their discussion post. So the next thing that I like about Canvas is it gives lots of alternatives to written expression. And, I know, like, whenever I was in school, that was the main form of showing your understanding was expression, which worked well for me because I like writing.

However, that doesn't work for all our students. And so it's great because Canvas gives us lots of opportunities, whether it's through video or whether it's through pictures. And then if we're able to allow the students to demonstrate their understanding in another way, then we're not gonna be confused about what their understanding really is. Cause then, I know, man, is this a barrier with the written understanding and how they're able to demonstrate their understanding in a written way, do I really need a tier two intervention? Because I know there's always the argument that kids are gonna have to learn how to absolutely agree. But if you're teaching science, and I can allow them to make a quick video because Canvas has that opportunity, Then I know, do they really need a tier two intervention in science, or do they need that tier two intervention in language arts? So it enables me to really tell what's their understanding.

If we use some of these alternatives to written expression. Really quick, I'm not gonna go into these in detail. Just gonna have them here for you so you guys can look back at them another time. But one of the things I've we have lots of examples here, but I wanna show you another tool that we put in our Canvas courses we have something at the bottom of our pages, and you'll notice this on some of the assignments that we might have throughout here. I'll try and point it out.

But we have something called related canvas guides at the bottom. And we've created these inside, Google Docs. That way, as things change, we can easily make the changes instead of going back and trying working within like, all eight hundred of our courses. So one of the things that we put at the bottom and feel free, like Brian said, borrow these ideas. Use them stuff like that.

But we put this guide at the bottom. So at that way, if we're asking the students to submit something through an image, they always have directions. We are a Chromebook district. So you can see that this document's always there to tell them how do you scan on a chromebook, how you capture a screenshot, along with directions for how to do this. So once again, removing those barriers for our students so that they don't just get stuck and say I couldn't do that, you know, but this gives them additional resources.

But then I'm gonna put some examples in here as well for you guys. You know, evidence of strategies. Oh, this is something right here. I just wanna point it out. No.

You can tell the kids to open up their chromebook camera while you have them on a website. Like, say, you're going to say, like, oh, I want you to show me how you did on this. Tell them to open up their camera so that you can see that there, if you're worried about academic honesty. You know, so that way you can see that. Now, I mean, granted, they could, like, you know, put that in there in stuff, but it'd taken like less time to actually do the assignment than to do all that hacking.

But just an idea for that if that's something that worries you. This is actually in my husband's classroom. He is a wood shop teacher. And so for him, being able to use images is huge because, I mean, you have, like, you know, two hundred some students, and you have all these projects in your classroom. So he has kids submit their drawings.

Here they are submitting, you know, pictures of this was a Chromebook stand that they had made. So just some ideas on, submitting images there. This right here might be an example of an assignment that you would use with your students to say show me an example of, maybe you're in the middle of a lab and you want a quick update on that. Maybe you're in the middle of a project. If you're a teacher and you just wanna know, like, okay, let's give them some accountability for showing where they're at.

But, and then once again, down here, you can see, at the bottom, how there is a how do I capture and upload a screenshot or photo? So we have those guides built in to support the students. And and one thing I like about those guides too, since they're in Google, we can also track Google analytics to see how often it's visited. And and within the first couple of months, one of those We have like nine hundred and fifty some odd visitors to it, which means there's like nine hundred and fifty some odd fewer calls to the help desk and nine hundred and fifty some odd potentially students that were able to really just be empowered to do their own work when they needed to do it. And it helped us to sell what we're doing too. You know, as far as in Canvas and showing people kids really are using this.

Here's some ideas on capturing, audio. And then one of the things that I always like to say is You know what? It's not necessarily always you don't have to listen to every single assignment you have the kids turn in before they give a speech. Have them. It's an assignment that they have to go in, and you don't have to grade it, but have them go in and say, I want you to read your speech aloud one time inside Canvas before you turn it in. Or if you want, you need them to improve fluency, or before you have them turn in a paper, you need to go ahead and you need to read your paper out loud in Canvas.

They always find at least one or two mistakes every time they read their paper out loud. That was what I found with my students. So just some options there. Oh, no. Okay.

And then once again capturing video. Same thing right here. I'm not gonna go into all of this with you guys. This is a resource for you later. But lots of examples for whenever you might have them capture video.

While I'm going to the next page of creative use that I had, some of my teachers use. When they had the students, like, in lit circles, they had the students record their discussions. Now, did the teachers go back and, like, listen to those? No, but the kids really had a lot less tea parties while they were doing their lit circle discussions because they knew the teacher had the recording of that for later. They just said, Oh, I just want you guys to, somebody hit record, and then you're gonna go ahead and turn that in. But then also if a student was absent, they could still hear what went on in the discussion.

So you just kinda creative about thinking about how using Canvas gives you other opportunities to learn what's going on in your classroom and learn the kids understanding. So this is another, idea that we're helping, our teachers with. So we're looking to do more standards based assessment, and so One of the things that we can do is we can put an I can statement module within Canvas. And then this gives students a place to put that evidence of their learning. So one of the things also I put a hint in here that remember in Canvas, you can always use the same assignment more than once.

So let's say at the beginning of your module, you might put this assignment in there so they can upload any evidence they have like, Hey, if you guys have any prior knowledge of this, if this is something you've learned on your own or you know from the past, put that in there so that I can see what all you know. You can use that same assignment at the end of the module, and you can put that in again. So let's say a student bombed out on something on the test, but they, like, know that they know it. Tell them, hey, put some evidence in there. So that I can see your understanding of that.

So here's what one of those modules might look like. And they can have all their I can statements from that unit. So let me show you an assignment and what that might actually look like. So this is, once again, like my husband, he has to be a guinea pig, you know, for everything whenever your wife does this type of job. So this is what he uses in his classroom.

And so here are the objectives of the students when they're creating a wood shop project. And then here you can see, like, the activity. So complete both of the following rubrics on the first one indicate your current mastery of your woodshop skills by highlighting in blue. On the second one predict your growth during this course by highlighting in blue. Click the following link to make a copy of the sixth grade Woods project.

That's the rubric that they use. And then they're gonna submit a copy of it to the assignment. And you can see then at the end of the unit, he edits the same assignment. And then he adds this down here. For your final project, locate, that document in your Google Drive complete and submit the rubric after highlighting your current level of mastery.

So whenever we start to think like Haddies, and we have the kids predicting, and we have them thinking about their understanding and stuff like that also. So, and then it says, take two pictures of your phone, stand, one from the side view, one with the two pieces taken apart. So I can see your standing of your cuts. So he has this in here for them, and then you'll submit the following, your rubric, your side view of your phone stand and a two piece picture of the phone stand. So in general, I'm gonna go to SpeedGrader here.

One of the things that and he's a newer woodchap teacher, he taught elementary for teen years and then moved over to middle school woodshop. So what he loves about this, when he's grading the student's work, he doesn't have to use math to add up every one of these at automatic does it for him. He can grade it with a rubric. He can see the students' projects as they have turned this in throughout the unit. And gonna be a little pokey, so that's okay.

But then he can see their pictures in here as well. So I'm I'm not even gonna wait. We'll just go ahead. But believe us, there's actually pictures and rubric there. I promise right now.

And I don't even have a back button. Oh, alright. So, so just so you know, this was a big sell for him because it was much easier. He doesn't have two hundred projects sitting around his classroom at one time. He doesn't have to do all the math when it comes to adding up how the rubric, and he has that evidence that's in there.

So when anybody asks him, it's all in there. He has his students thinking about their growth. He has them making those predictions. So it's been a really powerful strategy for him as he's implemented this in his wood shot classroom. Okay.

So let's scoot past here since SpeedGrader's not being friendly. Next, I wanna talk a little bit about teacher productivity, within an LMS and why this is a benefit to you as well as to your students. So One of the things, and I kind of alluded to this earlier, is there's fewer papers everywhere. Like, when you do an exit slip in your class, which is powerful, then you have all these, and you have to, like, go through them, And you have just jungle over the place. Versus in this, you can quickly find that evidence of learning.

So think once again about the whole strategy of using an exit slip, like on a piece of paper. If you know this, oh, man, I don't have time to go through all this, but I wanna check up on these three students. It's really fast and easy and SpeedGrader. Check on those three students instead of leafing through, like, a hundred, two hundred pieces of paper and trying to find it. And then, frankly, like, the handwriting of, like, that's this small of how many high school boys, you know, I mean, that, in and of itself, is, like, great.

Organized data over time. You can kinda see like, oh, they didn't quite understand it here, but I'm gonna check theirs later to make sure that, you know, I, I have that in my mind, those three students, and I can see how they grew. Another thing here. It's a visual representation of data whenever you're using some of those analytics that helps you out there. Quick instructional pivots and feedback, since it's so organized in here, it helps you out to make those.

And then it's also assessment for learning, because you can make those quick pivots whenever it's inside here. On this page, also we're featuring a couple city labs things, like with those, little click on them and fun. So here's another little thing. Canvas has benefits verbal teacher, student learning teacher productivity. Notice I can't go ahead until I answer this.

And that is a little city labs quick check, just for a little fun thing in there. And then we can move on. So this is beneficial for you as a teacher to save you time and help you focus on the things that are really important, but then also important, for your students. So we're talking about the whole student today, so SEL support. So how does Canvas provide that? So, One thing, a feature that's inside Canvas is the ability to do comments.

What if you told students like, hey, whenever you guys turn something in, also want you to give me an emoji that tells me how you feel about how you did on this, or an emoji, me, emoji that tells me your understanding of this. Now, in our district, we did get rid of the poop emoji. So kids cannot put that on. You can customize that within the admin panel because really sometimes we don't wanna know what they're thinking about that. Or how they express their feelings on that.

Okay. So, next, I wanna show you guys some SEL check ins. And here's a Google assignments option, if you prefer that. So I'm gonna show you some of these that we have. If you use this on here, you can get to like a Google slides version of this.

You gotta click through for me. But we're gonna show you where we've also built these with Canvas so that we can do a quick check-in with our students. For time sake, we'll just, yeah, I'll just go through the Canvas ones. Perfect. So the first one I'm gonna show you is a stress level check-in.

So have the kids tell me, like, drop drag and drop the stress ball that shows your stress level today into the text box below. Tell me if you're one of the first two, what's on your mind, and what's the one thing that you can improve to get you toward the other stress ball. So if you're one of the smiling ones, what's going on well right now? So we can just do these quick things like this to put this in our classroom to give us an idea of, oh, they're looking at themselves today. Let me go ahead and check that. So how charged are you today? Here's another example of one.

We can just keep clicking through them, Brian. If you were the weather, So which one of these would you be? Also, if you're comfortable, share what's impacting your forecast. Growth mindset, which one of these are you gonna make for your goal today, or during this unit? And then guys, this also gives you something that you can specifically show your counselor. So if you have a student that you're worried about, now you have data, you have evidence, and you can say, Hey, I've been seeing a pattern, this student, they were so happy go lucky, and then all of a sudden there's this change, because we have the data inside here. Here's a stop in smell the roses.

Which one are you falling into? You know, tell me something about each of these. Something distracting you today, positive or negative. Tell me about it in the text entry box below. So these are some different ideas where you could just duplicate these assignments and just put them into Canvas to do a quick check and just tell the kids, hey, today you're gonna do this as soon as you walk in. Now, if you would prefer to do these as a Google assignment, I also made this sample Google assignment here, but with how the internet's going, I don't think we better venture into that.

Not worth the waste of time. And then once again, yeah, you had great luck with quizzes earlier. But I just put the stress ball one into a quiz too. So just kinda know whatever your preference is. You can do these lots of different ways.

It's not like one size fits all has to be a thing. So that was a little bit about how we can support SCL and get that data of our students But then also executive functioning is another thing that Canvas really supports. So what is executive function? Let me see. I'm gonna skip this for time's sake, the video. Yeah.

Either skip this. So, this is a great little video. You can come back and watch on executive function. But if we're thinking about executive function, here is a definite up here, if anybody's not familiar with it, executive function and self regulation skills are the mental processes that enable us to plan focus attention, remember, instruct and juggle multiple tasks successfully. Just as an air traffic control system at a busy airport safely manages the arrivals and departures of many aircrafts on multiple runways, The brain needs this skill to set to filter, distractions, prioritize tasks, set and achieve goals and control impulses.

So Canvas actually supports this for our students. And then this is also things that you can tell your students about to have help them to know that hey, if I use these tools or this is how I am being supported. So in Canvas, we have our homeroom, and we do we use, Canvas for elementary for all our students because we really think it helps support executive functioning skills as well. But you can see on here whenever they're in their homeroom or whenever they're on their dashboard, you know, whatever you wanna look at it. Users can arrange those course tiles and order a class schedule.

They can, the course tiles, they say, Hey, you have this due today. You have this missing. They put that important announcement right up there for you. So if you use Canvas in your classroom, if someone's saying, yeah, I don't wanna use Canvas, I still wanna use Google classroom. This can be things to support the reason why something like Canvas is good for them.

The schedule. It shows what's completed. It shows new announcements. It gives due dates. It's missing assignments listed.

And then now with the new version here, we can have whenever there's something that's missing on there, all those assignment titles they link to the assignments. There's no longer that excuse of, oh, well, my, I can't find the ones that I'm missing. Well, right there, it'll tell you it's missing, and it gives you the link directly to it. So that's that executive functioning skill that if we can just tell the students, like, Hey, it's trying to help you out here. And I have a couple of these kids.

I have four kids and, like, two of them totally fall in this category. The course home, what do you do within there to, help your students, but also now it lists those announcements at the top of the pages, and they can arrow through them, using icons and words for easy navigation, list all that important information on the home page so that they have that. Grades, It puts that gray total at the top. It gives them colors to indicate if they've submitted, if it's late, if it's missing. All these things support those students who might struggle in these areas.

The assignment enhancements. Now it displays that progress at the top in the little wheel. It gives them those icons, they can see the rubric on the same page as the assignment. That's huge. It used to not be like that, but that's a functional improvement that they're making too.

And then now they can also see that feedback directly on that same page. So they don't have to click out and go somewhere else, but whenever we got the assignment enhancements, it added that as well. But it's easier to access that teacher feedback now. Once again, this is something we do in our district, but we put those related canvas guides at the bottom. So that the students always have that real time support, and they always have the directions right there on the screen.

Notifications, teacher kids, how to use this? So that it supports them and it Canvas works for them. And then these are just general features down here for an LMS in in Canvas. It can also support that executive phone like messaging students who having that consistency in their courses. But just think about it. They don't have all the backpack clutter that they used to have.

Like, because seriously, if you get my student or my son until he hit like college, if you gave him a paper, like, it was never going to be flat again ever. You know, if he could even find it, it's just never even ever gonna think about being lot. So different ways that it'll support your students in that way. Brian? Okay. So I know we got about maybe ten more minutes together.

So thanks for your, your patience and attention here. And so, just a few more things here for for student readiness. And so, you know, as you as you think about how to leverage canvas with the kiddos, and this is something we put in everybody's courses in that, suggestions due at the beginning of the school year, kind of, of a module. To eliminate those barriers, don't let them guess. Don't make them figure it out.

You know, I know I hear a lot. Well, kids just are intuitively knowing how to use technology. True to some extent, but only the technologies they are really super interested natively learning how to use. Right? And so being explicit in the instruction is important. So even something like showing them how to use the mobile device and and how they can leverage their phone to collect the evidence of learning or find feedback.

And actually even for our teachers. I mean, we we have several conversations with staff all the time about how they can use their phones to even do the grading and things that's super user friendly now with all the upgrades to the mobile versions of the app. And so things like that, how to set up the notifications, where to find that feedback Even that last one that says, explain to them how they'll communicate. How will your teacher communicate with the student? Are you gonna use the inbox? Are you gonna use email? We would probably argue or advocate for the inbox since it's all in one place, especially now that you can also copy parent observers on messages that you send. That way they're in the loop as well.

But just what are the expectations that the students can have in order to be successful in your course? That all wraps into MTSS, right? That that that support. And then there are the, again, encompassing all learners. There are some specific things we wanted to call out that Canvas can do, or things that you can think about while you're using Canvas to support learners that may have autism or traumatic brain injuries or maybe they're deaf or hard of hearing. And so I'm not going to go through all of these, and this is not something that we created. We source this.

From the Michigan virtual. But, for example, I don't know, autism, right? If you click on that, they actually give you some suggestions on how you can leverage Canvas to support kids that may have some some, need of of that more direct and, explicit support. And so we would definitely encourage you to go through that and and see if there's things on there that might work for you as well. This is a great one to pull out too, if you're having team meetings or or things like that, IEP meetings, five zero four, is that kind of stuff. And so just kind of thinking through.

And so The last couple of minutes just to to finish out the accessibility piece, there's there's a few tools that are already natively built into canvas that you can use. Obviously, the immersive reader, has been in there a while, which has been fantastic. I've loved the upgrades to immersive reader. We and Rockwood also buy a product called Blackboard Ally. It's now been transitioned to a new company.

I believe they were bought out called anthology, but they're keeping Blackboard Ally. And what this does is every single item we've got in Canvas with this particular integration. This is a third party integration. It allows us to Wait for it. Download the content on that page for e readers.

Students can download it in electronic braille. Maybe they wanna download an MP three version of what's on that page and hear it read out loud to them. The B line reader, this has been a really impactful one for us. That is for our dyslexic students. It gradually changes the color of the text across the page, and so it's more acceptable to, somebody that suffers from Xia.

The immersive reader, this is actually now pretty much the same thing you can get through the immersive reader directly in Canvas. They've merged into one tool. And then the last one on here are translated versions. And so we have a a pretty strong ELL population. And so you can they can take the content, whatever is on your page and download it into over forty five ish languages at this point.

And it downloads it as as another page, basically. And so then they can, you know, go through it in their native language if it helps with their, understanding of what it is you're trying to get across. And so, you know, just something to consider as as you're thinking about accessibility. And there's a little video there and stuff We don't work for Blackboard Ally, but we really like the product. And so we included a little little marketing video for you.

Some other things in Canvas, of course, we talked about the screen readers. Even something like the read and write for Google Chrome extension works well, if you're familiar with that. And then also Go ahead. If you don't mind, how many of you guys, like, have never noticed the immersive reader at the top. Did you wanna just click on it really quick? A lot of people never notice this at the top of Canvas.

This is native in Canvas. Like, your screen readers. Wait. Well, your kids have access to this. Like, but I don't know how many people that when we've presented before, they're like, I've never even noticed that button at the top of the page.

It's up there, and it gives your kids like an automatic built in screen reader. I I know there there's some I mean, it's really powerful. So go back in canvas and click on that little button, you'll be amazed. And so, you know, as you're continuing to think good design. Right? We started by talking about quality of design.

Some of the the things we have to consider too, which you've heard in maybe some of the other sessions or things like the alt text. Right? And and then also closed captions. And so just being aware of some of the tools that you might be using or that you may wanna integrate into Canvas, to make sure that those are turned on. And and, you know, we also adopted studio, and so we do a lot with closed captions with studio videos, but we also included some links on some other product that you might use, you know, maybe you didn't know that in a Google slide, you can actually have a live transcription service as you're presenting the words that you're saying are going across the bottom of the screen, or in Zoom or Google Meet. And so just some things to consider, making sure we're accessing, making the, sorry, making the content accessible to all learners, right, which was the whole point of our, of our MTSS strategies.

And so just, for your benefit here in the last couple of minutes, Marie, and I wanted to point out to you that if if I were sitting where you're sitting watching this one, I might feel a little overwhelmed. So sorry for that. That's you. But We've made this course that we've used accessible to you in the commons, and you can even download all of the examples you've seen today, all of the Google examples if you wanna start integrating those on your own because I know that's where my mind was gonna go like, oh, that actually looks pretty cool. I want a copy of that.

You can actually go get a copy of that if you wish. If you go to the commons, just search for the weight. My LMS can do white. It'll have the little unstructured con, banner there across the top, and you can download the entire course. And then even like those SEL activities or any of those fast formatives, or if you wanna see how we did like those things with the I can statements, any of those.

Now, you guys have it. So you can just download that, and then you can just copy those into your course. And so you can use anything that we made, feel free. There's no use. We all serve kids.

Don't reinvent the wheel, you know, give you a fast, you know, solution to some of those things. So Feel free to use everything in there. Yeah. So I guess we have about two and a half minutes left if there's anything that's on your mind you wanna share or interpretively dance now that we're at the end of the session. Yes.

I love that. If I had some swag, I'd throw it your way, but I don't. So I'm sorry. But thank you. I love the effort.

Yes, please. Yes. So what I'll do is I will go back to the to the homepage. And on our landing page, there is a QR code you can scan to get directly to the course. And that'll be, you know, the read only version of it, basically, because you it's a public course, but if you want the actual activities to be able to duplicate then use those on your own, then go ahead into the canvas commons where you can get the other version.

And and, yes, to reiterate what Maria said as well, we do have canvas for elementary turned on for our entire population. It has been a game changer, which is awesome. So And now it's a lot toefan. So that really got rid of Oh, that font discussion was intense. Yes.

Yes. So we we turned it on about a year and a half ago, and and up until recently, it had the old Balsamic Sands Elementary Fund, but now we can actually switch it. And so we noticed a huge impact on the student success rates. We started with summer school last year, and and the the success went way through the roof. And that in part is because of talking of the executive functioning is a lot easier for our kiddos at least from the feedback we got from them because we did survey them that they found things a lot more user friendly, and it was easier to see and find, like, feedback in their grades and missing work and things.

So And another thing, we work on Chromebooks. I mean, we're a Chromebook district. So the screen isn't very large. And in in that, traditional version of it, your navigation's on the side. So one nice thing is whenever we do have the elementary version, since your navigation goes across the top, it does give you, I mean, an extra inch and a half or so just to increase that screen size and different things like that to support the learners as well.

Yeah. Are there thoughts for the good of the group? Yes, please. Yeah. Go ahead. Let me see if I can find that really quick.

So one of the things that we do whenever we do course development, a lot of times, we automatically develop things so that they are several different types, we do a text box, a media recording, and a file upload. And those are usually our standards. And then if you do a file upload, if you're a studio district, it automatically puts an icon in that they can use for studio also. So that's kind of our standard just to support students different modalities and how they might express themselves. We try and put all three.

Teachers can limit that if they want because sometimes you just want a text box, but that is what we try to do by standard Any other questions? Awesome. Well, thank you so much for being here today. It was great to be with you. Enjoy your conference guys.