The blogging panel (L-R: Colin Benert, Tyler Williams, and Jessica Hurley) answers questions from the audience.
On April 25th, Academic Technology Solutions hosted Canvas Day 2018 in the Regenstein Library. This year’s Canvas Day was formatted as a half-day conference with two tracks of programming. The main sessions in room 122 included presentations from faculty on a wide range of topics including reasons to innovate in teaching, using video outside the classroom to engage students, blogging as a teaching tool, and the use of instant polling in class. There was also a discussion about ATS’ recent Canvas Survey and a panel of undergraduate students, which sparked some lively conversation with faculty.
The second track of programming, Canvas Learning sessions, was held in the TechBar Studio. ATS instructional designers led short workshops related to the content presented in the main sessions: organizing with modules, using multimedia in Canvas, and blogging and discussions. These short, technical workshops were designed to show faculty how they could use Canvas to implement the concepts presented in some of the main sessions.
Respondents to the post-event survey were overwhelmingly satisfied with their overall Canvas Day 2018 experience, and 92% would attend more events like this in the future. ATS is also pleased that the presentation on instant polling has generated additional interest in the current Poll Everywhere software pilot.
Scott Stern addresses the question of why to innovate in teaching and learning practices.
Additionally, interest in assigning student video projects and creating quick videos for course content came from attendees who participated in the One Button Studio tour. If you are interested in learning more about current pilots, please contact ATS for more information. For information and support for Canvas, visit the UChicago Canvas website at courses.uchicago.edu.
ATS would like to thank our faculty speakers for a great set of presentations, the undergraduate students who sat on our survey panel, our instructional designers for leading the Canvas Learning sessions, and our collaborators from the Library, Chicago Center for Teaching, and Booth School of Business for helping to organize a great event.