The next piece is an opinion and does not reflect the views of the eagle and its staff. All opinions are modified for grammar, style and structure of arguments and facts, but opinions are the own writers.
As a junior at American university, I spend up to fifteen hours a week in terms of homework and missions. Although this volume of work is difficult in itself, one thing makes it all the more difficult: the canvas. Well, in a way. Canvas is not really the problem here. The problem is how each teacher uses the learning management platform so differently. The structural differences between the canvas pages between the classes only add to confusion and anxiety around assignments. This apparently small reproach reflects a greater culture of online disorganization and it is on emission to the AU.
Each week, I make a list of tasks with all the assignments I need to finish. Reading the chapters of manuals to the submission of homework and remembering to go to office hours, I use this list as a outline for the week. However, it is extremely difficult to compile without having the impression of having forgotten a class or an assignment.
For some of my lessons, the calendar is at the end of the program, with weekly labels and suggested rhythms. For others, the professor uses the modules or assignments tab to have the units and the dates due chronologically; For others, a DOC page or a Google web page linked to the Canevas home page is the place where assignments are listed; And worse still, there are teachers who rarely use canvases and verbally sharing assignments far too close to the due date. All this to say that the disunity of the teachers’ canvas pages makes it much more difficult for students to stay up to date on assignments and course subjects.
The research found a positive link Between the organization and the reduction of anxiety. However, staying organized is much more difficult when the canvas page of each class has its own arrangement and hyper specific structure. Looking at the Files tab for a class, the Syllabus tab for another and the modules for the next one are difficult to remember and navigate.
Beyond the non-uniform structure of canvas pages, AU problems are common. Professors often cannot connect to the projector, have regular audio problems and manage the locked modules and assignments on the canvas. These scenarios and many others prove that something is wrong with the way this school manages technology.
AUD AUD student can expect to pay around $ 40,000 per year in tuition fees after help. For such a high price, it should not be unrealistic to expect pages of cohesive canvas and teachers who have adequate resources and education on the technology with which they work. Whenever a teacher must call a computer worker to turn on the projector or bring a dong for his computer, class time is interrupted and learning is interfered.
This column is not intended to call the teachers or to make them ashamed of technological problems. For a supplement that teaches a class by semester, for example, it is more than reasonable for them not to know how to connect to a projector from the 1990s in Kerwin Hall. The responsibility to educate teachers on how to work on the technology of each class and create an accessible canvas page, he then comes across administration. It is a bad service to students of the AU, who pay a lot of money to study here, so that their courses and their work interrupted by technical difficulties and canvas pages that feel like a labyrinth to navigate.
Over time, higher education should become Even more delegated On online technologies and platforms such as Canvas, I think. The AU cannot continue to allow teachers to be so technologically contested if students have to reach their full potential and make the most of their education.
The first step to solve this problem is to create a more robust, consistent and modernized technological policy. It is also essential to provide all teachers with adequate training to use existing university technology. For AU students who read this, do not underestimate the bad service that IT interruptions are in your education. Attracting attention to this issue will only help administration and staff to recognize its importance.
Addie Dipaolo is a second year student at the Public Affairs School and columnist for the Eagle.
This article was published by Quinn Volpe, Alana Parker and Abigail Turner. Copy edition produced by Luna Jinks, Olivia Citarella and Emma Brown.