Blueprint course implementation

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ElviaSegura
Community Explorer

We are thinking of adding a blueprint course next fall. Can anyone share if you have used one and how receptive it was from faculty?

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Hildi_Pardo
Community Coach
Community Coach

Hi @ElviaSegura  -- what a great conversation topic.

I think Blueprints are VERY powerful, but we've only used Blueprints for special projects (like to have multiple copies of a course that housed assessments for our distict -- one for each school, for example; or one year we used it for a MS Career Exploration course that was required, and the course was a self-paced, online course that teachers could just monitor progress).

We haven't used it for any general school year courses because of a few reasons:

  • not enough time and resources to build these courses
  • we've had Canvas long enough that teachers have done a lot of work in their own courses, and probably really like how they have things set up -- pushing content to their courses might upset them if they have to work around what's been provided, or they just have to delete or reset the course
  • pushing out a Blueprint would require a lot of very clear communication and a lot of training -- and no matter how hard you try to communicate something like this, and provide training, sometimes it creates more work.
  • I don't think there is a way to push blueprint courses to only new teachers -- (if there is, it's far more complicated and out of my scope -- but there are always ways to do things!)

I think using Blueprints would be really awesome for an online school so there is a packaged course that every teacher receives the course with the content.    

We've liked Blueprints a lot of special projects (as mentioned above) -- we've also used Blueprints for Prof Learning courses so there is one per school.

Blueprints could be great for a district that is new to Canvas -- but that means you need a LOT of time and resources to build those courses.   And a very clear plan for communication and training.

Hope this is helpful in some way!!   I applaud school districts that are able to really benefit from this feature!

 

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I certainly wouldn't discourage anyone from using Blueprints -- I just think it requires a lot of planning.  As mentioned, we have really benefitted from using them in special situations 😉

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