Canvas as God

Workbook Page: Digital Submission

June 23, 2025
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Module: Tech and Tools

Choose a digital tool or platform you use regularly in your teaching (Canvas, Google Docs, Zoom, ChatGPT, etc.).

Name of Tool:

Canvas

Description

Tell us a little about how you currently use the tool in your classes.

This is brutal, because I completely and thoroughly filled out this activity, then accidentally closed the page and lost all my writing. This version is simply going to have to be more briefl. I used Canvas as the home base for my course. I use the pages to record the agenda and link students to the work and resources they need for the class. This is extremely helpful to me when students are absence, because I can directly them to Canvas where they can keep up with the course on their own. I also use it for digital submissions, though I use a mixture of digital and physical submissions of work. Most recently I’ve started using the dicussion boards as a public forum for the student projects. Groups submit weekly work plans and updates to the discussion board, which becomes and easy access resource for me to keep track of their activies and better guide them in their next steps. I also use Canvas to keep track of grades, which will be discussed further in a bit.

Where Does It Come From?

Who designed this tool? What assumptions about teaching and learning are embedded in it?

Canvas is designed by a company called Instructure, and was started by two students at Brigham Young University in 2008, which is so wild. It’s also wild that I’ve never asked myself this question. After enjoying some success, the company was eventually publicly traded, and purchased by a company called Dragoneer Investments in 2024. Dragoneer is your typical San Francisco tech venture capital firm that was started by Marc Stad, the Harvard and Stanford educated MBA tech finance ubermench. The software pretty fully embraces the banking model of teaching, though it seems to proport itself as something more. It is a tool that is widely used and there seems to be this impulse towards sameness that I’m wary of. One user of the tool commented on their website that they love the tool because it can be used across institutions and so students all have the same experience. This feels similar to the way James Scott discusses the desire of empires to flatten and make everything countable to that control can be maintained in the polis. I am of two minds. I think that shared vision and direction, shared language is important for human togetherness, but I would hate to sacrifice difference on the alter of efficiency and simplicity. Additionally, the tool centers grading all the time. It’s mentioned everywhere on the site: you can grade anywhere at anytime on any device! Yay!

Who or What Does it Empower?

What power dynamics are reinforced through this tool’s structure or data practices?

The teacher as gatekeeper to grade and knowledge is strongly enforced. We have complete oversight of the student’s engagement with the course, down to amount of time spend on the Canvas page, which is pretty wild actually. At the same time, it adds a level of flexibility in terms of access to the course information that I think it extremely important.

What Kind of Learner Does it Benefit? Or Not Benefit?

Who might struggle to use this tool effectively? Who might benefit most?

Someone who is very independent, that can work well on a computer and follow the organization logics of the tool will thrive in Canvas. I find that as the instructure, I have to be extremely well organized. I started using Canvas as a student during the pandemics, and had an extremely wide range of instructors who were able to use the tool well and instructors whos canvas pages were a confusing nightmare. So, I think that instructors who work with and organizational model (or maybe even no immediatly obvious organization?) will struggle a lot with this tool. Admittedly, there is definitly a learning curve with the tool, and I still struggle to make it do what I want it to do. For example, you really have to push its limitations to find the ways to grade in exactly the way you want. It really really wants me to grade by percentage points, which I don’t like to do. Canvas is extremely bad for students who have grade anxiety. It’s in front of them all the time. It’s ineffective for students who need face to face interaction to be involved in the class. The students who needs to be absent from class benefit, and frankly, I benefit the most by have a proxy place to dump my course materials for when students aren’t taking responsibility for their own learning and expecting my to one-on-one tutor them through everhting. This is simply beyond my literal and financial capacity at a certain point.

Reflection

Given what you’ve explored here, would you consider not using this tool or using it differently? Why?

I believe I will continue to use Canvas, but I’m constantly looking for the ways to undermine its negative biases and wield it in the way that is best for both me and my students. I have yet to find the magic key, and I understand why many instructors stay away from it like the plague. I’m going to work this summer on how I can adjust my ideas around grading in general, and then also apply these ideas to the manner of structuring the grading section of the Canvas page. Any ideas on this are appreciated!