NERCOMP Regional Canvas User Group Meeting | April 2025: Canvas Connections: Innovate, Integrate, Inspire

Overview

NERCOMP Regional Canvas User Group Meeting | April 2025: Canvas Connections: Innovate, Integrate, Inspire

Where: Wellsworth Hotel
14 Mechanic Street
Southbridge, MA 01550
Directions

When: Tuesday, April 29, 2025
9:00 am - 3:00 pm

Registration Fee:
NERCOMP Member
Early-bird rate through 3/24/2025: $175 (savings of $25)
Member rate after 3/24/2025: $200

Non-Member
Early-bird rate through 3/24/2025:  $255 (savings of $45)
Non-Member rate after 3/24/2025: $300

The registration covers the workshop, morning and afternoon breaks, and lunch.

Event Overview
Join fellow higher education professionals at the NERCOMP Regional Canvas User Group Meeting, a collaborative forum designed to spark innovation and enhance LMS strategies. This interactive gathering brings together Canvas users and Instructure experts to explore creative applications, share success stories, and discuss challenges in leveraging Canvas and other Instructure tools. Whether you’re an LMS administrator, instructional designer, or faculty member, this event provides an invaluable opportunity to network, exchange ideas, and strengthen your institution’s digital learning ecosystem.

What to Expect:
 - Engaging presentations from Instructure and peer institutions
 - Discussions on emerging trends, best practices, challenges, and innovative uses of Canvas
 - Networking with colleagues from across the region to build lasting professional connections

Leave with actionable strategies and fresh perspectives to elevate your institution’s LMS experience. Don't miss this chance to innovate, integrate, and inspire!

Registration Cancellation Policy:
By clicking the "Register Now" button, you indicate a commitment to attend and will be held responsible for the registration fee. Your fee can be refunded if you notify us of a cancellation at least 5 business days before the event via email to nercomp@nercomp.org.

Event Disclaimer:
NERCOMP reserves the right to use any photographs or other mechanical recordings taken at NERCOMP events in promotional materials. No mechanical recordings of any kind may be used at NERCOMP events without the prior written consent of NERCOMP organizers and presenters. The views and opinions expressed at NERCOMP events do not necessarily reflect those of NERCOMP, nor does NERCOMP make any representation regarding the information presented at NERCOMP events.

Agenda

NERCOMP Regional Canvas User Group Meeting Agenda

7.30 am-9:00 am  Registration and Coffee

9.00 am-9:10 am  Introduction to the Day 
Mary MacDonald, Senior Instructional Technologist at Framingham State University
Adam Hauerwas, Academic Systems Architect / LMS Administrator at Providence College

9:10 am-10:15 am  Instructure/Canvas Speaker
Speaker:  Zach Pendleton, Chief Architect at Instructure

Since the release of ChatGPT on November 30, 2023, educators everywhere have been grappling with what it means for education. In this session we'll discuss the latest in AI, talk about what's coming next, and show how Canvas can help you safely and intentionally use AI to better reach your students.

10:15 am-10:30 am Break 

10:30am-11:30 am  Lightning Round Presentations

The Lightning Round presentations are a series of 15-minute talks designed to share best practices and insights and encourage conversations about innovative ideas and tips for using Canvas tools. 

Placement Testing for Fun and Prophet
Speaker: Adam Hauerwas, Academic Systems Architect / LMS Administrator, Providence College

It started simply enough: the Math department wanted to assess incoming students’ skills for course placement.  But they wanted to do so with both quantitative and qualitative assessments.  Then Modern Languages wanted to do have a test; then an Undeclared Survey was created.  Today we administer placement tests for Math, languages, and Chemistry, we survey interests from Undeclared students, and run Academic Integrity training for 1200 incoming students annually.  We’ll share 15 years of experience, Canvas tips and tricks (such as why we’re still using Classic Quizzes), and interesting ways we’re integrating the data for the Registrar and Academic Advising.

Credentials at Babson College
Speaker:  Meryl Poku, Instructional Technologist at Babson College

Babson College has successfully leveraged Canvas Credentials to modernize its certification process by transitioning from traditional paper certificates to digital badges. This initiative, led by the Academic Technology Innovation Center, aims to enhance the recognition and verification of skills and achievements. I will briefly describe our assessment of needs, selection of Canvas Credentials, Implementation/Pilot Phase, to our move to integration with curriculum (COIL) and school-wide need (Foundations of AI).

Impact(ful) Communication: Practical Insights from Our First Year
Speaker:  Ryan Sobeck, Assistant Director, Educational Technology at the Poorvu Center for Teaching and Learning, Yale University

This session will provide an overview of the assumptions we made about how Impact could meet our communication needs in Canvas, misconceptions we had about the tool prior to working closely with it, use case stories from our first year of using Impact, and our future plans for using Impact at Yale University.  

11:30 am-12:00 pm Open Discussion

12:00 pm-1:00 pm Lunch

1:00 pm-2:30 pm   API/Postman Workshop and Roundtable Discussion

In the afternoon we will have a workshop to introduce how to use the Canvas API in Postman to take action in the platform.  Concurrently, several tables will be reserved for roundtable discussions with other attendees for particular themes and topics.

2:30 pm – 3:00 pm  Next Steps / Wrap Up

3:00 pm   End

Speakers

Adam Hauerwas

Adam has managed three different learning management systems for Providence College, from ANGEL to Sakai to Canvas.  He is a "jack of all trades" as well and serves as Tier 3 support within the User Support division of the college's IT services, supporting operating systems, application software, and academic technology.

Alex Kareev

Alex Kareev is Senior Application Developer and Canvas Administrator at Princeton University.
Alex manages Canvas LMS system, creates and manages custom LTI integrations and tool development, and uses API to automate tasks and get data in and out of the Canvas system
Alex has over a decade of experience in Higher Education. And has worked with Blackboard, Canvas, and Moodle LMS systems.  Alex has degrees in Physics (B.S.) and Microelectronics Photonics (M.S.)

Mary MacDonald

Mary is the Senior Instructional Technologist with Framingham State University’s Education Technology Office (ETO). In this role, she manages the Learning Management System and associated integrated technologies and contributes to a wide variety of education technology initiatives across the university. Before joining the ETO team, Mary served FSU for over 6 years as an instructor and manager of the campus Planetarium. Drawing on her degrees in Astronomy (B.A.) and Secondary Science Education (M. Ed.) and her years of experience as a teacher in both public school classrooms and the planetarium, Mary maintains her passion for innovative, transdisciplinary, human-centered educational experiences, especially in STEM. Her areas of interest include Extended Reality, data science, and digital literacy. 

Zach Pendleton

With over a decade of experience in education technology, Zach Pendleton currently works as Instructure’s chief architect, where he collaborates with educators around the world to extend education’s reach, promote open educational platforms, and improve the impact of education technology. Additionally, he is a frequent speaker, podcast guest, and author in education technology. Zach holds a BS in English Literature from Utah State University and a JD from BYU’s J. Reuben Clark School of Law. His current research areas are generative AI’s impact in education, digital credentialing, and edge computing.

Meryl Poku

With nearly a decade of experience in Higher Education, Meryl serves as an Instructional Technologist at the Academic Technology Innovation Center at Babson College. In this role, she collaborates directly with faculty and staff to address their technology needs, particularly with new software and Canvas. Meryl leads Babson’s digital badging initiative and is also a key leader of the Babson Innovation Pipeline.

Ryan Sobeck

Ryan Sobeck is an Assistant Director in the Poorvu Center’s Educational Technology team. He supports the administration and usage of Canvas, Yale University’s Learning Management System, as well as all of the external applications that integrate into Canvas for faculty and student use. He is also the primary author and coordinator for all support documentation related to Canvas @ Yale and its connected tools to ensure there are robust self-service resources for the Yale community and beyond. Ryan has been at Yale since 2021.

Lodging

Hotel Information:

Rooms are available at the Wellsworth Hotel, the conference location.
To make reservations, contact the Wellswoth Hotel at 508-765-8000 and request the "NERCOMP Room Block".

The room block for April 28 and 29, 2025, will be available until on or before Friday, March 28, 2025
Standard guest rooms are available for $119 per night.

Slides/Handouts

1.  Canvas Credentials Meryl Poku, Babson College

2.  Impactful Communication Practices Ryan Sobeck, Yale Unviersity

3.  Placement for Future Fun and Profit Adam Hauerwas, Providence College

4.  Canvas API and Postman, Alexander Kareev, Princeton University

5. Canvas API and Postman Resources, Alexander Kareev, Princeton University