Beginning this Fall semester, there’s a new program replacing Blackboard, called Canvas. Instructors use Canvas to display their student’s grades, assignments, online tests, discussion boards and more. Chabot is joining the rest of California Colleges who are already using the new program. Canvas integrates with other apps like Note Bowl, Google Drive or DropBox. Any instructor can use Canvas for any subject they’re teaching.
Dr. Scherbart teaches Humanities, Philosophy, Religious Studies here at Chabot College, he stated, “California is not mandating but is offering all of the 100 plus community college districts, a chance to be part of a statewide push and initiative to use the same learning management system.” He is also one of the chairs of the Chabot Committee for Online Learning
There are loopholes in Canvas, nothing major but students and instructors should know. The setup is; go to discussions read everybody responses, but before you can see your response, you have to go through and leave a comment. The Loophole is if you have to post before you can see others’ responses you can post something meaningless as a period, comma or a question mark. Then it will unlock everyone’s comments. Then you can go through and edit your previous response. Prof. Scherbart was unaware of the loophole and will look into it.
Students will have a slim chance to copy someone else’s answers because it would be no use for them. Dr. Sherbart explains, “In the past with my online courses, I could set up quizzes so that questions were put in random order and the default in Canvas is that they’re put into a set order … [In Blackboard] the possibility of having a list of the correct multiple choice answers and if you give it to someone it would be no use because their answers would be in a different order than yours, so their answers might not be the same.”
Since this is a transitional semester where some Instructors are still using Blackboard for their classes. English Instructor here at Chabot Ms. Barbara Worthington is still using blackboard for her classes. “I prefer to stay with the current way of submitting the work. I already have a curriculum setup in Blackboard… I don’t want to rush into it until I know exactly how comfortable I am using it, but also how my students are using it to be able to answer their questions. I plan to attend several trainings for it [Canvas],” she stated. Ms. Worthington will be using Canvas next semester.
If you’re having problems finding Canvas, it is located at the bottom of the Chabot webpage. There’s a link to Canvas right next to Blackboard. If you’re having problems with Canvas, there’s a toll-free number 1-844-600-4956.