Welcome Families of Frisco ISD!

Welcome to Frisco ISD and Canvas. Canvas is our district Learning Management System (LMS). Canvas is the platform that teachers will use to assign assignments, quizzes, discussions, tests, and more with your children! It's a great method for teachers to deliver content and it goes hand-in-hand with our 1ForAll initiative.

This course is about empowering families to support their children. This course serves as a resource you will be able to come back to. Below you will find answers to some common questions related to Canvas and what you need to get started with this course.

What is Canvas?

Canvas is a “Learning Management System.” Teachers use it to share information with students and to store records of things such as assignments, quizzes, and files.

It helps to think of Canvas like this: Imagine everything teachers write on the whiteboard or hand out in class. They might draw a diagram of cell mitosis, pass out a worksheet of math problems, or give students copies of the Emancipation Proclamation to read. Now think about what students give to teachers. They might turn in that completed math worksheet, a lab notebook, or a report on how the Great Wall of China was built.

This school year, teachers will use Canvas to share all these learning materials, and students will submit their completed work through it too. Teachers can see the work, write comments, grade it, and return it to the student, using this one platform online.

Please note: grades in Canvas are not the official school grades. Official grades will still be available through our Home Access Center (HAC). Here is help to access HAC.

View the video below to learn more about Canvas LMS

Why Use Canvas?

Canvas can replace almost every exchange that uses paper. Teachers can also share video materials through Canvas—and with parents! Because everything is contained in one website, the teacher's Canvas page becomes a virtual classroom. For parents, it increases the transparency between teacher and guardian.

Only your school staff, teachers, and students can access the site. There is no “chat” or “hangout” function to distract students from class content.

How Do I Get Canvas?

You do not need to buy anything to access Canvas. But you will need a computer connected to the internet or an app on your smartphone to connect to your child’s classes. Here are the android and apple app links.

How Should Families Use Canvas?

In the first few weeks of school, you can sit with your child and look at the different Canvas sites for each class on their schedule. This will help both of you learn how the website works. You will see that Canvas has a “Calendar” feature that shows ALL the work that is assigned across your child’s classes. Using this Calendar can help your family support the independent work that kids learning from home will be doing this fall. You may want to download the Canvas Parent app for your phone so you can keep track of due dates and reminders from teachers. Here is a link to show you how to set up a parent observer account. This will allow you to link with your student's account to see due dates, assignments, and other course information.

This course will also demonstrate how you will navigate Canvas, create an account, use the district tools, and serve as a resource for troubleshooting, and point of contact. We invite you to take part in our lives and/or recorded webinars on Canvas and other tools to support your child and extend your learning of Canvas.

So, What Do I Need to Get Started?

For the best performance, users should access Canvas on a Chrome or Firefox browser. Make sure that your browser is up to date. Navigate to this website to see if your current browser is up to date. Using other browsers may interfere with content appearing correctly or at all. Canvas is meant to work with low bandwidth. Make sure that you have at least 512 kbps internet speed.

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