I interviewed three teachers from my school.

One teacher was a first-year

teacher on my team. Another was a reading specialist that works within
my school. The final was a special educator that works on my team as
well. I centered my interview around the new Canvas LMS that Howard
County is adopting in relation to collaborating with teachers across the
county.
1. Dissatisfied with the Status Quo
One of the teachers commented that she actually liked our old email
system that had groups that people could join to make collaboration
easier. She missed that feature when the county did away with the old
system. Canvas allows teachers to once again join as many communities
as they wish and increases the chances to collaborate. Another teacher
said that using the new Canvas system with the chat feature will be easier
than our current email system. In our current email system, you have to
wait until the other person comes online in order for your message to be
sent. It is also not easy to see where to retrieve your messages when
someone has sent you one. The last teacher said that Google Docs seems
like the best collaboration tool we have so far, however, it is limited to
only the people in your school automatically. To add others outside the
school, you would have to share it with them and go through several
emails to find the right person to add.
2. Knowledge and Skills Exist
This was an area that all the teachers said the same thing. They all
wanted more training on CANVAS in general and how to use CANVAS as a
collaboration tool specifically. They thought that small group and/or
individual meetings to get more training would be the best way to gain
knowledge and skills.
3. Resources are Available
Two teachers believed that the resources are available because all
teachers have laptops that they can use at school and at home. They
thought that the teachers also have access to the internet at school at
least to promote collaboration. One teacher mentioned that if we wanted
to collaborate more with parents or promote student-teacher collaboration
or even student-student collaboration that the resources were not
available because we have many students who do not have access to
technology in their homes.
4. Time is Available
Two teachers agreed that the time is not available to fully collaborate with
other teachers from other schools. They said there is barely time to
collaborate with different teams within the building let alone any teachers

outside of the building. They continued on to say that all the teachers in
our building have their own responsibilities that are insurmountable and it
would be extremely difficult to collaborate without adequate time.
However, one teacher said that through CANVAS, there would be enough
time to collaborate with other teachers. She said that the teachers dont
have to be sitting together to collaborate, they can do it all through the
computer.
5. Rewards or Incentive Exist for Participants
One teacher said that she felt she would be intrinsically rewarded by
learning more about CANVAS. She called herself a live long learner and
learning things in general excited and fulfilled her. Another teacher said it
would be rewarding to collaborate with parents and ease communication
between the two parties. The last teacher said that she would feel a sense
of accomplishment within herself if she could collaborate more with the
teachers she works with on a regular basis. That way her lessons could fit
more into the same topic as whats going on in the classroom.
6. Participation is Expected and Encouraged
All teachers agreed that participation is expected from the county to use
CANVAS. They are taking away all other previous programs so that only
CANVAS can be used. They have also discouraged the use of any outside
websites for teacher and classroom pages so that all school-related
websites go through CANVAS only.
7. Commitment by Those Who Are Involved
All teachers agreed that everyone involved are committed to CANVAS.
One teacher mentioned that the people who were not committed would
look bad and said she did not want to look bad to administration and their
superiors. Another teacher mentioned that easier access and being in
different communities within CANVAS would make the commitment easier.
8. Leadership is Evident
All agreed that leadership is evident. They all knew that administration
was on board and supportive along with the CANVAS Points of Contact.
They all believed that they are committed to seeing the school thrive with
the use of CANVAS and would encourage collaboration throughout the
school building.