Canvas

Teachers’ experiences with the new system.

By Joseph Kim

In October of this school year English teacher Matt Hagan finally decided to make the switch. After starting the year using Google Classroom, he decided, following instructions from the district, to use Canvas to distribute materials digitally to his English classes.

“It was very frustrating because it was not second nature like Google Classroom was. I never needed help with Google Classroom once I was introduced to it. I could run my class on it and I use it all the time and so switching to Canvas has been very problematic because it is not as smooth, it’s not as easy to understand.” said Hagan.

Two years ago, the district had made a decision to make the switch over from Google Classroom to a new learning management system called Canvas. Within those two years it is assumed that all teachers have made the switch over to Canvas. Many teachers found themselves finally making that transition this fall.

While teachers are making the transition, some are questioning why the decision was made. Hagan believes that it was because it’s a system that is popular with colleges.

“I think someone from Canvas had really good sales people and they told our district that colleges are using Canvas and that it’s really important to give your students an edge by giving them Canvas now and it’s only going to help them in the college atmosphere.” Hagan said.

For some teachers, as soon as the announcement to switch over was made, they immediately did as instructed. History teacher Terra Caldwell is one of those teachers who were among the first to make the switch.

“I’m using Canvas because the district is making us use Canvas. The district rolled out Canvas about 2 years ago and said this is what we’re going to use instead of Google Classroom and I opted to use it right away.” said Caldwell.

Still, many held off on switching over because they felt that the rollout was not executed effectively.

“I’ve just never been that particularly happy with the rollout, how we were trained with it. I don’t really feel like I’m an expert at it and proficient at it. Right now I’m kinda learning on the fly as I go.” Hagan said.

Not only that, but the pressure that teachers face nowadays only further compounds issues of learning Canvas.

“I think maybe that a lot of teachers see it as that there [is] a lot going on with teaching specifically in our district, specifically in our district right now we have a lot of pressure with the lack of other teachers/colleagues. I mean students are aware of this.” Hagan said. “There’s a lot of other things we are dealing with outside teaching and so to add Canvas doesn’t seem like very good timing. Like I guess if we were going to prioritize what’s most important to students it doesn’t seem like Canvas should be the priority.”

Other teachers on campus simply believe that Canvas was just not needed. Physics teacher Jeff Jorgensen, believes that Canvas had complicated his system of sharing assignments with students.

“Because all of my assignments are in Google Drive, linking anything to them is much easier through Google Classroom. It’s far easier for students to access things in the Google Drive through Classroom than it is through Canvas.” Jorgensen said.

“It’s far more labor intensive to do that in Canvas. My attitude to the district has been, I’ve got a Honda that works perfectly well, stop trying to sell me a Lamborghini. Maybe it can do more stuff, maybe it can do 200 miles an hour and it’s got all kinds of bells and whistles I don’t need. I just want to plot along with my Google Classroom that works just fine.” said Jorgensen

Jorgensen also says that the students that he has talked to all much prefer Google Classroom over Canvas.

“Every time I ask students what they prefer it has been unanimously that they prefer Google Classroom to Canvas. Canvas is a very cumbersome piece of software.” Jorgensen said.

However Jorgensen mentions that a potential lack of a learning management system isn’t as much of a problem for teachers as it would be for students.

“The threat was that Google Classroom was going away and the fear was that you wouldn’t have access to that platform anymore. So if you didn’t have a presence on Canvas you were going to be unable to electronically share anything with students. So the teachers don’t necessarily suffer, the students do.” Jorgensen said.

While some teachers and students have expressed this dislike of Canvas, it appears to be here to stay for the forseeable future. Caldwell believes the best way to deal with this is to embrace Canvas and get to use it more.

“Canvas is a bit annoying but overall it is better than Google Classroom. It’s got more bells and whistles and there’s more things you can do with it. I haven’t regretted switching to Canvas but I also understand why people don’t want to use it.” Caldwell said.

Caldwell added a final piece of advice for those struggling to adjust to the new platform.

“There’s an old engineering adage called mess around and find out and I think that’s probably the best way at this point going about Canvas is to mess around with it and see what happens.” Caldwell said

How are you liking Canvas so far?

Senior Eric Xian

“I hate Canvas. It’s just a really convoluted version of Google Classroom that is unnecessary. We’d probably be better off without it. The user interface is just a lot more complicated than Google Classroom and besides people are more familiar with Google Classroom than Canvas.”

Senior Shuai Zhang

“It’s not the best. There’s teachers who really don’t know how to use it and teachers who know how to use it but don’t like using it. They’re just not used to something new. They do want to stick with what they’re familiar with although it’s good to try something new.”

“Started out rough but it has grown on me. It seemed confusing and complicated at first but after using it for some time it has been nice.”