Chantal Henry/Contributing Writer
The University has slowly begun to transition from Blackboard, the school’s main hub for online courses and hybrid classes to Canvas, a new learning management system.
Due to the recent change, students and professors had to be able to adapt to the new online dashboard. A couple students are onboard for the new changes, while, on the other hand, some students are not in favor of the change.
Michaela Moura, a women’s studies professor, appreciates the transition to Canvas.
“It’s so much easier to navigate the system, connect to social media and online content… I teach fully online on Canvas and it’s been a blessing compared to Blackboard,” said Moura.
For some students, the transition to Canvas has also been for the better.
“Canvas is a little better than Blackboard because it’s more clear [and easier to understand]…and the calculations of the grading scale is better [as opposed to Blackboard],” said Neyda Hernandez, a senior human resources major.
Cheyenne Dawson, a junior majoring in communications, disagrees with Moura and Hernandez. Blackboard, she said, is more user-friendly.
“Personally I like Blackboard more because I think it’s more user friendly to students, Canvas is hard to navigate…I think blackboard layout is very straightforward, but with Canvas you have to search for things when it is not necessary,” said Dawson.
Some students, like David Bell, a senior majoring in marketing, thinks that this transition came at a bad time. Bell said that he has some classes on Canvas and some on Blackboard, and the split is simply annoying.
“[Also,] the professor doesn’t really know Canvas that well so he did not set it up with the intent of us using it that often…the layout is better than Blackboard and better to navigate..I just don’t like that they’re doing it during a major semester like this when they could do it during the summer,” said Bell.
According to the official timeline on canvas.fiu.edu, the transition will be complete and all classes that were previously on Blackboard will be on Canvas by Summer 2018.
Feature Image a screenshot of the canvas.fiu.edu
About Post Author
