Instructure Launches Canvas K-12

SALT LAKE CITY, Feb. 1, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Instructure™ (www.instructure.com) announced Canvas K-12™, a new learning management platform that co-enrolls parents with their students in schools, makes state standards tracking painless and provides actionable analytics to teachers and administrators. More than a dozen K-12 school districts, including Rockingham County School District in North Carolina and Park City School District in Utah, are leveraging Canvas today to save teachers time and improve learning.

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"Rockingham held big expectations for Canvas, and I've been extremely pleased with its performance and the reaction of our teachers," said Dennis Frye, Director of Instructional Technology and Media at Rockingham County School District. "Our implementation process has been a huge success. We're looking forward to a long future with Canvas."

Instructure launched Canvas to post-secondary institutions in February 2011. Since that time, more than 100 institutions have chosen Canvas as their learning platform, including Brown University, Auburn University and the Maricopa Community College System.

"The missing ingredient in K-12 technology initiatives is a modern education platform to virtually extend the classroom for teachers, students, administrators and parents," said Josh Coates, CEO of Instructure.  "Canvas K-12 will make teaching easier, save teachers time and improve learning."

Parent co-enrollment

Instructure saves teachers time and engages parents in education by co-enrolling parents in Canvas. Parents can opt for push notifications when their child misses an assignment or has a test scheduled. At any time, they can log in to view grades, see their child's participation in forums and communicate effortlessly with the teacher.

"With Canvas K-12, when a teacher makes a change to the calendar or to class assignments, parents are automatically notified through an email, a text message or a Facebook notification," said Brian Whitmer, Co-Founder and Vice President of Products at Instructure. "The days of teachers having to stuff backpacks with paper are over."

Painless state standards

Canvas K-12 makes the reporting of state standards and common core objectives quick and easy. Instructure pre-populates Canvas with state standards and common core objectives, so teachers can simply select the objectives and align them with course assessments.

Actionable learning analytics

Learning analytics provides a powerful way to monitor student engagement, track activity and predict success. Canvas employs predictive profiles to proactively assist at-risk students and creates a dashboard to identify trends and compare individuals, classes and schools.

Availability

Canvas K-12 is a new cloud offering by Instructure for the 2012-2013 academic school year. Districts interested in Canvas K-12 should contact Instructure today to schedule a demo. In the meantime, teachers can begin using Canvas for free. For information, visit www.instructure.com/k12.

About Instructure:

Instructure is focused on helping institutions improve education through technology. Founded in 2008 by two computer science graduate students, Instructure builds Canvas―the only simple, open learning management system native to the cloud. Instructure services more than 100 post-secondary and K-12 educational institutions. Investors include OpenView Ventures Partners, EPIC Ventures and Tomorrow Ventures.

CONTACT: Devin Knighton, Director of Public Relations, Instructure, +1-801-722-8187, [email protected]

SOURCE Instructure