Starting this fall, a new Canvas may be replacing your old Blackboard.
For the first time, Information Technology Services is launching a pilot called Canvas to potentially replace Blackboard, a virtual classroom that has been used by St. Thomas faculty and students since 2002. About 100 students this fall and 400 students this spring will test Canvas.
Both Blackboard and Canvas are learning management systems, which serve as an online platform for teachers to post materials and grades, and for students to submit assignments and take tests.
“For a long time, Blackboard was the only choice and sort of the main choice,” said Brett Coup, associate vice president of academic technology. “And then other companies began developing systems and schools began to evaluate these other systems. All of those (new systems) make it worth looking around and at least doing an evaluation process.”
Coup said Canvas is expected to run smoother and faster than Blackboard in order to encourage faculty and student use.
Canvas features for teachers include an easier way to access and create gradebooks, tests and discussions forums, more ways to communicate with students and new ways to record video and audio within the system.
With Canvas, students would have a much wider variety of ways to receive notifications. For example, if a teacher added a new assignment, the notification could appear through an email, text or both. Even notifications through popular social media, such as Twitter, are available.
“That means each student can decide how they want to receive information from their instructor and from other students,” Coup said.
Who gets to participate in the pilot is decided completely on a volunteer basis, and Coup said that he is still looking for professors open to trying out Canvas in their courses.
Senior Ritish Dhandhusaria said that he hasn’t had any major problems with Blackboard in the past, but is still excited by the possibility of Canvas.
“I think it’s a great way to streamline how students receive their homework,” he said. “A lot of freshmen definitely have a bit of a hard time when it comes to getting into the habit of checking their email every day. However, I could see some students preferring the current way of using their student email because mostly everything school related is done through the St. Thomas email, and it would keep everything in one place.”
On the other hand, Kathleen Winters, a political science professor, said that she won’t know how much she likes Canvas until she uses it in context. For the most part, however, Blackboard has been just fine.
“I know when talking to other faculty, some are not real thrilled with how user-friendly Blackboard is. Because I use it quite a bit, I’m really familiar with it, and I had used it prior to coming here so there wasn’t a learning curve for me,” Winters said.
And if all goes well, Coup said it is very likely that next summer Canvas will be chosen to replace Blackboard, the transition beginning in the 2018-19 school year.
Even with all the potential pros of Canvas, Winters said she isn’t sure about jumping to a completely new LMS.
“(It’s) kind of annoying if you have to learn (how to use) the whole thing over again. That said, I’m open to the idea that it will be better, it’s just hard to know until you really dig into it,” she said.
This article was written by Danielle Wong, a Threesixty Journalism scholar.