The New School is bidding goodbye to Blackboard at the end of 2013. In its place, a new learning management system called Canvas is being introduced.
The university began to look into alternatives to Blackboard in 2012 when a faculty technology survey showed that only 50 percent of faculty found Blackboard useful in enhancing their classes. The provost’s office and IT came to an agreement that Canvas was the best substitute.
“The consensus was overwhelming that Canvas was better than Blackboard, for reasons that resonated with us: ease of use, incorporation of media, encouragement and support for collaboration, and so on,” said Jim O’Connor, the director of the distributed education department, adding that while Blackboard was still predominantly used this semester, Canvas was already available in about 500 classes, with few problems to report.
“I find Canvas a very flexible and powerful space for collaboration, discussion, and community-building with students, not just for traditional classroom functions,” said Dean David Scobey, who uses Canvas to work with the Public Engagement Fellowship program.
More than 500 schools, including Brown, Julliard, and the Ontario College of Art and Design, use Canvas, which was developed by graduate students in 2008 and launched in 2011. The system offers more options for communication, including New School and personal e-mail accounts, private Facebook and LinkedIn messages, and even text messages. There is also an option for live videoconferences and screen sharing. Students are also able to create groups on Canvas to share documents, have discussions, and have video chats with fellow students.
O’Connor does not believe that the transition will be very difficult for students, though there might be some things that may be confusing at first. He compared it to the minor navigation difficulties students might face when Facebook “improves” its user experience.
To ensure that no data is lost, the IT department has backed up all content on Blackboard from 2008 to this current semester. Virtually everything will be available upon faculty request.
“[Canvas] is much easier to use,” said Lang student Karen Louviere. “You can upload images and files, of course related to the class, whereas on Blackboard it’s a little confusing.”
Born and raised in New York City, Rafaella (Raffi) is majoring in Journalism + Design at Lang. Rafaella also enjoys fashion, writing poetry, reading for pleasure, the art of drag, and listening to pop-punk!
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