The Canvas Insider Grows Up

I started this blog in 2022 because I had information to share about Canvas and no place to say it.

Back then COVID was on the decline, but Canvas LMS was everywhere. Accelerated adoption had outpaced what most schools were ready for, and support staff were mostly invisible. Faculty had questions about their courses. Departments had problems with outcomes and assessments of learning. And through no fault of anyone, knowledge and experiential skill about Canvas got pushed to the side.

So I created a Substack and started writing.

For four years, I’ve been showing up in your inboxes the way a wise colleague appears at your office door: informal, carrying something useful, occasionally cracking a joke. Every word was written by me. Every video was narrated by me, a Canvas Admin paying attention to the quirkiness of his LMS and sharing what he noticed.

If you’ve been here for any part of that era, thank you. I am grateful you have stuck with me as I found my voice. That version of the Canvas Insider was exactly what it needed to be, and whom I needed to be.

Things are different now. Here’s what changed.

Over the past several months I’ve been acquiring something I didn’t have back then: an enhanced skillset for LMS administration built around Python scripts, Node web applications, and automated workflows that resolve issues Canvas’s own feature set doesn’t address. I developed these tools through conversations with AI, but the observations, the ideas, and the customizations are mine. Each one exists because a recognizable problem arrived in my inbox and the existing solutions weren’t clean enough.

This work deserves a more serious tone of voice than a post that signs off with “stunningly vivacious Canvas Insiders.”

So here’s what the Canvas Insider looks like moving forward.

The problems I write about are real issues, the ones that populate my email inbox first thing in the morning from several faculty. The tools I share are explained clearly, downloadable, and openly licensed. The workflows I walk through are elegant because the people I serve deserve elegant solutions, not seven-step bullet-point lists and a handful of links to documentation they’ve already read.

The razor-sharp wit stays. The warmth stays. The hurdy-hurr cheeky jokes are done.

I’m writing for Canvas Admins who want to do their jobs effectively inside schools that don’t always make that easy. For instructional designers who need creative solutions their IT department hasn’t thought of yet. And for directors of educational technology who are quietly deciding whether the person they’re reading is someone worth knowing.

I think I am. This is where I’m going to prove it.

-Chris