Category: Activities

Taking Canvas Open Source LMS – To The Schools of New Mexico

Post author By North Navigation
Post date December 26, 2017

This piece was based on a presentation we delivered at the 2017 Ed-Fi Data Summit in Austin TX. It is a summary of our work with Learning Tapestry in New Mexico to build and deploy the Canvas Open Source Learning Management System and then move two education agencies, their users and their courses from Blackboard and D2L Brightspace to their new open source LMS.

Need

In 2016, both the New Mexico Public Education Department and the state’s largest school district, Albuquerque Public Schools (APS), found themselves with diminishing budgets to sustain two separate full-feature LMS solutions.

They needed an option that would significantly cut costs but not reduce features for their constituents and statewide course deployments.

Canvas has a growing market share and is the fastest growing enterprise level learning management system. Instructure also releases a full open source version of the Canvas LMS as freely available platform.

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Source: LISTedTECH LMS database under agreement with MindWires Consulting

Solution

Both agencies wanted to take advantage of the application-rich, flexible platform without introducing an ongoing, steep annual budgetary item. So we partnered with Learning Tapestry to examine the Canvas open source system. Our efforts focused on providing the following:

a full-featured platform
state-wide scalability
open source architecture
application-rich LTI options
community of practice
customizable
cost effective

[irp posts=”7979″ name=”Navigation North Named Leading Web Development Agency”]

To move forward with these implementations, we moved through deliberate, phased steps including initial needs assessment, environmental scans, modeling, prototyping, building, testing, migration, staff training, and final launch for both Canvas open source system deployments.

Double The Tech

On a technical note, we originally anticipated both agencies would reside on the same core instance, but we learned they wanted completely separate systems. APS serves the initial hosting for both systems with readily available capacity, virtual machines in place, flexible system requirements and configurations.

load-balanced across multiple front-end web servers
separate servers for cache, utility, and database
network storage for shared files, logs, and backup
centralized monitoring services provided by Zabbix
all powered by open source applications and services

The Easy Part – System Configuration

Learning As We Go

Not everything was apparent from the beginning of this project. Here are some things we learned along the way:

Not all of Canvas’ advertised features are available in the open source version
We had to build a custom Desire to Learn (D2L) course importer
Blackboard common cartridge exports transferred reasonably well
SIS data auto-integration is locked at administrative level
SIS data migration into Canvas was fairly seamless, while pulling user data back out was tricky
Clever has a development integration fee per month, per school site

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System Readiness & Training

Given a very small window between course migrations, user account population, and launch – we built orientation as an actual Canvas course. We then had staff learn while working with their own content all in one shot, rather than simply providing a demonstration.

Future Growth

LTI / APPs

OER Content Repository
#GoOpen Node (115,000 learning objects)
User’s Owned Resources

SIS Management

Dynamic, Two-Way
Ed-Fi Integration to replace Clever and handle data in / data out capability
Proposed SIS management:

Course Sharing

Community Best Practices
Create a shared course directory as Canvass OSS Commons

[irp posts=”7049″ name=”4 Reasons Students Love The Smithsonian Learning Lab”]

Results!

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Robust

Enterprise-class LMS
Scalable statewide
Comprehensive tools

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Integrated

Plays nicely with external SIS data
Rich, diverse application library

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Cost Effective

Reduced initial costs over 60%
Reduced ongoing annual costs by 90%

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Interested In Learning More?

Reach out to our team to talk about how your agency can leverage the power of open source software like Canvas to reduce costs, improve connectivity, and provide the flexibility your educators and students need.

Activities Company News Digital Learning Design Education Innovative Instruction Open Educational Resources

Recognition For Research: Navigation North Keeps Development Connected To The Classroom

Post author By North Navigation
Post date November 18, 2016

Navigation North is proud to receive recognition for the research-based work we have conducted with our colleagues at the Smithsonian in developing and shaping the Smithsonian Learning Lab. Digital Promise convened experts at Teachers College, Columbia University to review and selected one exemplary company and two honorable mentions in each category. EdSurge reported on the findings, identifying Smithsonian Learning Lab for its work with extensive nation-wide teacher testing and prototyping to inform development and design.

While many teams lean heavily on marketing trends reports or committees of experts to understand classroom needs, we have found the need to balance those types of approaches with regular work directly in classrooms with teachers and students. Here is a recent snapshot of this work around digital tools and resources designed specifically for teenage learners.

Working in coordination with the Smithsonian Center for Learning and Digital Access (SCLDA) researchers, Navigation North examined strategies, processes, and tools that engage students and promote deep, sustained inquiry.

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Persistent scaffolding and questions, student notation and annotation of resources, visual indicators of student progress, and peer to peer collaboration, were a handful of the elements we observed as generated from both a survey of over 120 pieces of contemporary literature and studies on teen-use of digital learning tools and systems, and an inventory of the features contained within the top 10 predominant learning management systems and social media platforms actively used by teens across the U.S.

Distilling this information down allowed the Navigation North team to create a specific testing regimen using the Smithsonian Learning Lab as the primary environment for organization and distribution of learning resources and content for the student-testers.

All information collected is being organized into a report coming out soon as part of a Smithsonian Youth Access Grant in which Navigation North is contracted to lead and complete as part of their ongoing work as the lead design and developer of the Smithsonian Learning Lab.

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As is usually the case, students delighted us with their intuition, instinctive aptitude for exploration and discovery, and direct feedback on what worked and what did not:

“I like all the information connected to what I’m looking at so I can add my own notes to understand later.”

“I prefer to have a way to type up what I am finding or even what I don’t fully understand when looking at the online videos. Then I can check that against what I’m reading later in the lesson.”

“If I could take what I typed directly on the picture and then use that in my answers on the test at the end, that would be what I would change.”

“I was hoping to find more information on light sabres… I mean, come on man.”

One activity had students selecting contemporary applications for some of Emerson and Thoreau’s quotes, so it was fitting when we saw one student select the following Thoreau adage, “It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.”

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Whenever we go into the classroom, we always see more. A big THANK YOU goes out to the teachers who opened their classrooms to us and our colleagues from the Smithsonian, and the willingness of the students to expose their thinking, their processes, and candid feedback so we may learn from them.[/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container]

Activities Education

We will be @ Datapalooza in DC.

Post author By North Navigation
Post date October 3, 2012

Tuesday, October 9th we have been invited to the Datapalooza event at the White House (yes, that White House) in Washington D.C. to present on various architectures and applications we have been developing and deploying that use open educational data to better provide educators more tools and resources for their classrooms to support Common Core Standards implementation.

We are excited to get a chance to showcase some of our development and see all the great work going on by various partners across the nation at this event.

Activities

Next Generation K-12 Platforms…

Post author By North Navigation
Post date October 3, 2012

Brian of Navigation North, worked as the primary author on a new white paper with a team of lead national thinkers and strategists on the topic of “What would it take for State Education Agencies and Big Data to come together to benefit schools?” under the direction of the K12 Center @ ETS.

Download the white paper: The Next-Generation K-12 Platforms

Activities Education

Learning Registry Development and Research

Post author By North Navigation
Post date September 22, 2012

After completing over a year of developmental prototyping under contract with SRI on Learning Registry programming and implementation, Joe of Navigation North co-authored a state strategies white paper with Ashley Lee from SRI.

Building a Network of Resource Sharing States