LA GRANGE – Lyons Township High School has long searched for a fast, reliable and secure online education system. One that allows students to continue their education after school and for teachers to have better organization with their curriculum.

[ That search is over, school officials said, as LTHS will soon adopt the Canvas Learning Management Software as it’s new learning management system. ]

“The teachers have been asking for this,” said Scott Eggerding, director of curriculum and instruction for LTHS. “For teachers today, one of the biggest challenges is how you collect information from students, grade papers efficiently, [assignment] management, electronic submission and return. They are also looking to have moderated [online forum] discussions.”

For Eggerding, Canvas will be able to meet the needs of students and teachers as an all-in-one learning platform that would allow for modern teaching to combine with contemporary technology and cut down on password and log-in clutter.

“Teachers can embed content [with Canvas], and they can create and link YouTube videos,” Eggerding said. “Students have to log into so many different things. It can become cumbersome to use all these tools.”

According to Eggerding, the implementation of Canvas for LTHS will cost the school about $10 to $11 per student. The system won’t be fully online until 2016 and will cost a total of $43,500 for the first year with $45,675 for the next year.

“Plus [an additional] $800,” Eggerding said. “It’s for [implementing] our log-ins and passwords, student info system, course codes and training. Canvas will come out here to work with our tech staff.”

Eggerding added the decision to use Canvas was not taken lightly and LTHS reviewed a number of different learning systems.

“We shopped around,” he said. “We used Blackboard and Moodle and considered Brainhoney. Google also has learning management tools. They weren’t as robust as Canvas.”