Canvas and Edison
Collegiate High School
High school ‘lives, eats and breathes’ Canvas
At a Glance
• Edison Collegiate High School
administrators wanted to open-source
their curriculum.
• Students at Edison State College, ECHS’
parent institution, strongly preferred
Canvas in surveys.
• ECHS now delivers all of its courses via
Canvas—reference material, assignments,
submissions, grades and feedback.
The Challenge
Edison Collegiate High School (ECHS) in southwest Florida prepares students with the academics and maturity they need
for dual enrollment in college for their junior and senior years. It’s part of the Edison State College system. Before the
2011-2012 academic year, teachers and administrators “felt trapped by the traditional bell schedule and top-down
academic plan,” said Dr. Brian Botts, principal of ECHS’ Lee Campus. They were looking for more flexibility in course
content and delivery. Textbook sticker shock was the final straw. Botts called Edison’s online learning team to ask what
technology they had available to support an open source curriculum as an alternative to traditional teaching methods.
The Decision
The team was in the middle of choosing the best learning management software for all of Edison College. Important factors
for Edison included:
• Integration with Banner, the college’s student information system
• Integration with learning tools such as Wimba and test conversion software
• Quick migration from Blackboard CE6
• A hosted solution
Evaluators narrowed the field down to Canvas and Blackboard Learn 9.1. Faculty piloted courses on both platforms. Then
the review team sought the preference of the most important stakeholders: students.
Canvas & ECHS
“We live, eat and breathe Canvas.
We are 100 percent sold—it’s very
integrated into what we want to do
here.”
“It’s all very native—you just point to
something and (students) get it. It’s
clearly designed with end users in
mind.”
“If I was starting at another school, I
would demand that they use Canvas. I
can’t do what you want me to do if I
don’t have this product.”
Survey results showed:
• 86 percent of students agreed or strongly agreed that they “like Canvas”
• 49 percent said Canvas is better than other course software they have used, 27 percent saying it is “about the same”
The results were similar for specific questions about Canvas’ ease of use, features, organization and personalization. So
when Botts called, the online learning team recommended he try Canvas.
The Results
Within two weeks of receiving Canvas training, ECHS faculty adopted it wholeheartedly. Botts, who has extensive
experience training teachers how to use a variety of learning platforms, said Canvas is “clearly designed with end users in
mind. You just point to something and they get it.” Students required no training.
With ECHS courses, every piece of content resides in a module on Canvas. For reference materials, teachers post links,
video clips and citations from textbooks. They also post learning tasks and assignments. This way, teachers don’t have to
write reference information on a chalkboard and rely on students to copy it down. They also don’t have to make copies of
handouts for everyone, which has essentially allowed ECHS to go paperless. Students submit homework and papers online
where teachers can grade them and post feedback. “It’s faster and cleaner, and then it’s archived where parents can look
at it later,” said Botts, whose daughter was a freshman at ECHS during the school’s first year using Canvas.
Botts is also excited about another new way ECHS teachers will begin using Canvas. By evaluating quiz and test questions
with rubrics, teachers can measure learning outcomes—even across courses. For example, a particular student’s progress
in developing her academic vocabulary can be monitored by both her language arts and social studies teachers.
Botts sums up Canvas’ impact on his school this way: “We live, eat and breathe Canvas. If I was starting at another school,
I would demand that they use Canvas. I can’t do what you want me to do if I don’t have this product.”
— Dr. Brian Botts
Edison Collegiate High School
Lee Campus
Visit us at CanvasLMS.com
Call us at 1 (800) 203 6755
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