What is a Canvas Lite Account?
In NM, many LEAs and charters use Canvas as their Learning Management System (LMS) for in-person, virtual, or hybrid learning. It is also connected (or implemented) with their Student Information System (SIS) like PowerSchool or Skyward giving them a full account.
As part of the NMPED’s partnership with Canvas, if an LEA or charter did not decide to implement Canvas as their LMS (a full account), lite accounts were created for future use and to allow people to have access to PED professional learning and Elevate NM. Lite accounts are basically like scaled-down accounts.
I thought Canvas was only for Elevate NM or PED Professional Learning.
Elevate NM is separate from an LEA or Charter’s full or Lite Canvas account. The Elevate program allowed the state of NM to create Canvas accounts for almost every educator and building administrator. Thanks to this initiative, the NMPED Canvas Catalog can also be accessed for many professional learning opportunities, and people can see what courses they are enrolled in as an instructor or student in their lite or full account right from their Canvas Dashboard.
This LMS thing is new to me, could you provide a comparison to Google Classroom? What about an example from other schools?
Of course! Check out this document for a comparison AND take a look at this video about Canvas from a school district in Ohio.
We use Google Classroom so why would we use a Canvas Lite account?
Great question! Lite accounts are perfect for activities like professional learning, human resources, department collaborations, a faculty corner, libraries, counseling services, testing calibration, a collection of ‘How To’ videos, Senior information, or portfolio collections. Plus, public-facing Canvas courses can be created for topics like SEL, a parent hub, principal’s corner, school news, and whatever else you might be envisioning. In short, it can be used for an amazing number of purposes beyond the traditional LMS.
Our charter or LEA feels overwhelmed planning for the next school year so how difficult would it be to use a Lite Canvas account?
The state of NM has consultants available to partner with you to manually create the courses you need and to help enroll users. In addition, they can help you or your staff connect with a large number of Canvas training resources in the form of live webinars, online tutorials, and a learning library.
Help! We still don’t really know what we want to do but many of the Canvas features or possible activities sound promising…could we just talk to someone?
Reach out to the Canvas consultants to answer all of your questions and to demo what you might be thinking about.
What if we start using this Canvas Lite account and discover we want to connect it to our Student Information System (SIS) to become a fully implemented LEA or charter?
The Canvas consultants can meet with key people in your organization to explore your options and discuss what is a relatively easy process.
How do I get help with adding teachers or administrators to my Lite Account?
Please reach out to us to discuss approaches for using a Lite Account and we can work with you to plan what will work best for your situation.
Can teachers make their own courses and add students to a Lite account?
It depends…charters and LEAs often have software use policies for student-facing activities. Please check with your IT department and connect with us when you have more information.
Who is in charge of Lite Accounts if we decide to use it?
Depending on the size of your organization, each Lite account should have a couple of people who have familiarity with web-based applications who can be your Canvas Admins. We can provide numerous resources and individual training plans to help them get started.
What are some of the wonderful things you can do with Canvas in the classroom?
We could fill up an entire website with an answer! Many people wrongly think Canvas is only for remote learning. Canvas is the perfect tool for increasing student engagement and helping teachers save time. It's one of the many reasons Canvas is used in colleges and on a daily basis within districts and schools of all sizes. Here are a few ideas to get you started:
- Post copies of all assignments and materials.
- Grade work submitted online in SpeedGrader (or on the Teacher App).
- Use rubrics to provide effective feedback.
- Bulk send emails to parents and students who are missing work or who score below a certain percentage.
- Analyze student performance and participation.
- Have course or group Discussions based on topics and prompts (i.e. video, PDFs, etc.)
- Integrate Google or Office 365 Assignments or other EdTech tools.
- Create Canvas Pages for information like reading excerpts, videos, and links to files and other course or group content.
- Create digital learning stations for labs and other hands-on activities.
- Use Canvas Studio to post or record videos and have in-video quizzes.
- Give quizzes or tests and have Canvas grade them automatically depending on the question type.
- Create badges to gamify your course.
- Have student choice and reteaching options through Mastery Paths.
- Control the flow of your course using prerequisites or requirements.
- And much, much more....
Is there a Canvas course for NM?
Yes! The NM Canvas News & Resources public course has an amazing amount of information, events, and links to find out more.
I like the way this information is presented...what program did you use?
We used Adobe Creative Express thanks to a purchase by the PED. Please reach out if you are interested in learning more about how Adobe applications could be used in your LEA or charter and how to integrate them into Canvas.