Last Friday we held the latest ‘Canvas, Coffee and Conversations’ event.  It provided another great opportunity to hear from academics involved in Phase 1 of the Canvas roll-out and learn about what they’ve discovered throughout the process.

Dr Neil Anderson from EEECS was first up  and talked about how he ‘accidentally’ created a blended learning curriculum, by exploring how he could use the Canvas features and tools to help engage his students.

Dr Neil Anderson presenting to audience

We then heard from Professor Christine Brown Wilson, Gail Anderson and Matt Birch from the School of Nursing and Midwifery.  The panel answered questions from the audience on the approach they took to rolling out Canvas across the School, and how it supported their blended learning strategy.

https://twitter.com/LizaZamb/status/1066050436602433536

They had lots of tips and advice for other Schools, including:

  • find champions within the School who can act as advocates for change;
  • add Canvas implementation to the agenda of regular School meetings and committees; and
  • think about how best to engage staff with training and information (for example, they held training sessions within their own School to encourage more staff to attend.

Finally, Aaron Crozier from the VLE Pedagogy Team talked about what blended learning means and how to approach moving from a traditional to a more blended curriculum delivery model.