Olympian parents have got acquainted with the assistant Canvas LMS Olympia

As technology (platforms, applications…) has increasingly supported students’ learning activities, understanding and practicing these tools help parents understand their children’s learning processes and stages of development. On August 14-15, 2021, The Olympia Schools officially had an online introduction and learning organization for all Olympian parents and students about Learning Management System (LMS) Canvas.

In that introduction session, parents had time to study and experience a course exclusively designed for them on Canvas platform under two roles: learners and observers witnessing their children’s learning and development. This is considered an opportunity for parents to better understand technology resources which The Olympia Schools have invested in to support students and teachers to learn safely and actively in both online and face-to-face learning environments which flexibly change in the pandemic context

Figure 1: Parents participating in online learning on Canvas platform, with the MS Teams tool integrated in Canvas.

Playing a role as learners, parents got to experience a full course with all Canvas features, actively interacting with learning content and instructors. Not only did they study, parents also conducted practical exercises and mini-tests, and were marked and commented by the instructor. The Schools hope that those experience have been helpful for parents in preparing their children for different learning options when the COVID19 epidemic situation is still very complicated.

Figure 2: Parents had similar learning and testing experiences to their children’s.

As observers of their children’s learning process, parents will be proactive in monitoring their children’s curriculum, learning activities, assignments, tests, assessment results as well as other activities and events their children participate in at school. On that basis, parents can collaborate with The Schools in building student’s autonomy and agency as well as observe and assess The Schools’ learning and teaching quality. Thus, parents can contribute their voices to The Schools’s improvement and development. At the same time, parents will have more tools to communicate regularly with teachers about their children’s learning, such as messaging, notifications, and discussion features on Canvas. This helps develop partnerships within The Olympia Schools’ learning community.

Figure 3: A parent is observing his child's learning progress on Canvas application on the computer

Not only stopping at the web version, Canvas also allows parents to perform their roles conveniently and quickly on the mobile app version.

After a period of experiencing and learning on LMS Canvas Olympia, some parents expressed concern because they were still unfamiliar with the use of Canvas, but most parents were open to these changes and ready to join The Schools to experience, explore, and respond to perfection.

Olympia always encourages and creates favorable conditions for parents to participate in teaching and learning activities, and to contribute their voices to The Schools’ decision-making process. Fostering parents to participate in the online learning ecosystem will build a learning community in which each participant of The Schools – including teachers, staffs, students, families and partners – are learners, who are constantly learning and growing, and educators. Since then, Olympia’s mission “to create a challenging experiential learning environment that motivates all students to grow their global competencies and characters, so that they can co-create the future in a new world” is realized.

The collaboration of parents not only ensures that The Schools and families accompany students but also is an opportunity to develop international mindedness within The Olympia Schools’ learning community. With that support from parents, The Olympia Schools has more confidence and motivation to start a new school year with the theme “Learn smart. Be agile. Empathize”.

#beagile