BY LUKE BAUER (’15)

Several weeks ago, the Granville School District’s current learning management system (LMS) provider, Lightspeed Systems, announced the discontinuation of My Big Campus. With the change taking effect before the start of the next school year, school officials have been scrambling to provide a new online based service capable of allowing teachers to distribute homework, make announcements, post assignments and perform other various activities that the teachers have become familiar with through My Big Campus.

The change, however, comes at a fairly inconvenient time. Just two years after classes at Granville began learning and using the LMS, the student body and faculty workforce must now learn yet another new system.

Several high school faculty members, including Assistant Principal Scott Carpenter, and English teachers Amy Tolbert and Judith Henderson, and Intervention Specialist Grace Waggoner have begun conversations with several potential services.

Once Robert Sexton, the Director of Technology, had set a few technical specifications, the field of potential LMSs was narrowed to three. Among the potential customers are Bright Space by D2L, Canvas and Schoology.

“The goal of the new system is to meet the needs of teachers and to provide them with the things they wanted,” said Tolbert.

“The goal is to make things easier for teachers, because, at the end of the day, they are the ones who will be able to help the students,” added Carpenter.

After several team meetings, it appears that Schoology and Canvas are the front runners according to the faculty involved.

“I liked Schoology because it has a lot of the features of My Big Campus that I liked, and all the features of Moodle that I liked,” said Tolbert.

Time will tell which company will provide the new learning solution software for the school, but the closing of  My Big Campus is inevitable. A new era in Granville’s online schooling provider is near.