Mira Costa Learning Management Committee presents proposal

By Hannah Parker

Online News Editor

The Mira Costa Learning Management Committee composed of Costa teachers presented their proposal to select the learning management system Canvas as Costa’s school wide LMS for the 2016-17 school year at the Manhattan Beach Unified School District Board of Trustees May 4 meeting.

A LMS is a technology that allows teachers to proctor exams, display homework, and track student progress. According to MBUSD Superintendent Dr. Michael Matthews, the purpose of implementing an LMS is to unify the online platforms teachers use to distribute information to students.

“The Committee’s end goal is to positively impact students,” Costa Vice Principal and facilitator of the LMS Committee Kristin Wolberg said. “If teachers can do things more efficiently through Canvas, than they potentially have more time to spend individually with students.”

Costa Principal Dr. Ben Dale formed the idea of an LMS in the spring of last year and formed the committee who’s first meeting was held before the school year. Since the beginning of the school year, teachers were able to volunteer to pilot LMS systems such as Google Classroms, Canvas, Hiku, and Ebackpack and attend the LMS committee meetings to voice their input on which LMS the school should use. Wolberg said that 12 to 20 staff members attend each meeting.

“The Committee looked at 42 pages of data regarding teacher’s feedback along with outside feedback from other districts pertaining to LMSs, and then made a very informed decision to advocate for Canvas,” Wolberg said. “I think Canvas’s potential is fairly limitless since it just depends on how teachers plan on using it.”

In the fall the committee sent out a survey to collectivize teacher’s priorities using Survey Monkey. Teacher’s polled that the improvement to student learning was the most important. Within this selection, teachers selected the ability to streamline grades as a top priority. Canvas allows teachers to do this by transferring the grades from assignments graded in the system to Powerschool, Wolberg said.

“Canvas is the easiest to use and very intuitive,” Matthews said. “It provides great information to students regarding their homework schedule in a very readable form. I think it is very powerful because it gives teachers multiple options to different learning tools.”

Using Canvas, parents will be able to login and check their student’s assignments and upcoming tests for all their courses on one online platform. Canvas also will allow teachers to administer tests on the platform and identify where students need attention.

“Canvas has the ability to integrate grades from the system to Powerschool,” Wolberg said. “This will help with organization and communication. Parents will be able to use it to view their student’s grades which will result in less parent emails and more time for teachers to focus on lessons. Canvas has lots of perspective for saving time for both parties.”

The MBUSD Board of Trustees will vote on the Canvas proposal on May 18. If it is selected, it will be integrated into the 2016-17 school year budget. Canvas costs $30,000 for the first year and $20,000 for each following year. MBUSD will review the of various online service contracts to afford Canvas, Matthews said.

“If we move in the direction facalty where we are all using the same system, I think it will be a lot more fluid,” Co Chair of the english department Jonathan Westerberg said. “It will make it easier for students to know what to expect and where to go instead of going to multiple sites.”