Student Q&A: Paige Fron

Name: Paige Fron

Grade: 10

1. How are you acclimating to the switch to Canvas?

“[I am not acclimating to [Canvas] the greatest right now because the Canvas platform is similar to Google Classroom, but it’s not as easy to navigate as Google Classroom.”

2. Do you feel like switching to Canvas has improved your learning and/or the structure and organization of your classes?

“A little bit, because they organize it in a certain way that makes it easy to find your assignment.”

3. What do you believe are the advantages of Canvas?

“The advantages of Canvas are kind of how the teachers can make it their own and set it up the way they want. And we, as students, can experience how they set up their own Canvas. Mr. George does fun agenda stuff and I feel like that is very useful to me rather than the regular calendar that is on Google Classroom. It brings more of a creative aspect to it for the teachers and the students to experience. It’s been pretty organized for me so I can find the assignments, and [Canvas] kind of helps you along the way with uploading [assignments] and what kind of file.”

4. What do you believe are the disadvantages of Canvas?

“The disadvantages are that it can be hard to access sometimes. Sometimes the Zooms won’t work, or assignments won’t work. It can be hard because then you have to email the teachers and do a lot of steps to actually get the work done instead of Google Classroom, where it was just posted.”

5. Was your initial view of canvas different at the beginning than it is now after some weeks of use?

“Yes, it has changed because in the beginning, for me, it was hard to navigate. I was like, ‘do I go to the assignments or the modules?’ or, ‘how do I access this or how do I turn this in?’ and it was difficult for me. But, once I learned how to do it, it became easier for me to navigate, and therefore it’s easier to adapt to.”

6. Are most of your teachers’ Canvas pages organized similarly?

“Most of them are the same, except for a few of my teachers that have taken the opportunity to make it their own, but most are the same.”

7. Do you have a teacher that is thriving while using Canvas more so than Google Classroom?

“I’d have to say Jon Anderson is taking Canvas very well. He has a way of organizing his work by chapters and sections; we can find all of our work below the chapter to keep it organized instead of [the Canvas feed] being a long list of random things. I’ve had that for most of my [other] teachers. Having that organization really helps students.”