Canvas Student
reviews and complaints

I have SO MANY feelings about Canvas, and most of them are bad.

In general, the theme is a lack of prioritization of information. Here are the specific complaints:

1) The grades tab has a notification icon that doesn't go away unless you not only go to the grades tab, but click on and navigate to EVERY GRADED ASSIGNMENT and EVERY NEW COMMENT. This means that, if my teacher has graded anything at all since the last time I was on, before I can get ANY work done, I have to go and open half a dozen tabs in order to get rid of that annoying little thing. What's worse is, if I just took a quiz, then get the little notification dot next to "Grades" the second I navigate away from the quiz, and lo and behold, it's the grade of the quiz I JUST TOOK. That I was just at. That I already saw the grade of.

2) Speaking of quizzes! Mixed format quizzes are an absolute nightmare to look at just after you finished. If it's a 25 pt quiz, but 10 of those points are multiple choice and therefore auto-grade-able, then it doesn't matter at all how well you did, the first thing you see after you finish is "Score: 10 out of 25.*" with the * below saying "*Some questions not yet graded." I nearly had a heart attack the first time this happened, and every subsequent time since, it has been utterly useless! I don't know about you, but I personally am NOT tallying up the possible points I could have gotten from the auto-graded questions while trying to take a timed quiz, so the "X out of Y" at the end is completely useless in telling me how well I did on the multiple choices anyways. A fix for this would be "Score: 10 out of 10 graded (25 total, some questions not yet graded.)" It would be easy, you already know which questions are graded and which aren't, so you know how many points I ACTUALLY lost, not just how many points you've already given me.

3) No built in dark theme for desktop, and shoddy built-in dark theme for mobile. An extension called "Better Canvas" gives customizable desktop dark theme, but the mobile dark theme isn't super great. Some text, if my teacher has used colored text and gone back to black text manually, shows up as black on dark grey. Not great, needs workshopping.

I'm sure there are more complaints that I've had that I'll remember later, but these are the ones that have REALLY rubbed me the wrong way this semester. Do better, I know you can. This is just lazy.

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Dear Canvas App developer team,

I think the Canvas app is set up wonderfully and wanted to make a few suggestions:

1. Mailbox

I wish that I can “Select All” so that I can delete emails at once. I receive an email for every little change made on my courses by the instructor, so by the time the quarter is ending I have a million messages to delete one by one to prepare for a clean inbox the following quarter. It would also be nice if I can “swipe right” to delete or pin a message. It would be even better if users can choose what the “swipe” functions does from a set list through settings.

2. Course Material

Instructors are able to sort of design their page off of a template. Some instructors are tech savvy and create a whole new web page, while others go by the template and keep all the extra tabs/categories (Like Moduels, Files, etc). Sometimes I wish that I can “Hide” tabs within the course so that I only see the functions that the instructor utilizes. This is more for organization. I think it would help students focus better, take more control over, and integrate their use of Canvas.

3. Customization

I wish that I can edit my name that’s misspelled. I realize that this may be an issue with the email or student account that is tied to the Canvas account, but it would still be nice to be able to edit my name within the app.

4. Others

I believe there are many solid functions (the ones listed on the bottom like “Dashboard”, “Calendar”, “To-Do”) that are not being used by many instructors. It would be nice for students to be able to change what solid function to have on the bottom. Personally, I have never seen an instructor use the “To-Do” function.

Thank you Canvas team for all that you do to bring a great platform for students to learn on. We appreciate you!

My school recently did a full switch to Canvas, and while I prefer and enjoy Canvas better than our old platform (especially with the convenience of having an app), there are a few bugs with it.
-Whenever I receive a notification, swiping it only opens the app. It doesn't take me to the specific announcement, discussion, or assignment from the notification. This is more of a "quality of life" fix, but it can be very annoying to navigate through your different classes and tabs trying to find a specific notification that you received. Every other app on my phone has this feature, so why doesn't Canvas?
-Every single time I post a reply on a forum post (Discussion, as it's called in the app), the app crashes. It'll still post my reply, thankfully, but it's very annoying.
-My notification settings randomly reset. I notice it mostly when I change my settings, save them, and then force close the app. The next time I open it, the settings are back to default (which means you receive notifications for EVERYTHING. Every little thing. Lots of spam for Discussion posts)
-Not a bug, but related to the above issue: I can't find a way to unsubscribe from Discussions after I've posted to them. I can do this from the web browser, but if I'm away from my computer and my notification setting reset, then I'm usually getting 10+ Discussion notifications per day.

Despite these inconveniences, I really do like the app. I love that I can look at all my courses and all its content on the go, and I can even complete assignments on my phone and upload them through the app. It was a life saver my first week of this semester. The interface is simple and clean and very intuitive, and the majority of the time, the app is stable. If this app went through a bit of polish and was given enough attention for a few bug fixes, it would be golden.

As a student, I really think this app is not as bad as students say it is. Sometimes you can hate the app just because you forgot to do the work, or you can’t complete the assignment because of sports. The app is not at fault. The app works as it should. Canvas does a great job at three areas in particular reliable, accurate, and smooth. The system rarely ever glitches even on low end devices (Such as a Chromebook Lenovo) or Dells lower end devices. Canvas uploads the work directly to your administrators which usually revise the work quickly. The app is also reliable. PARENT BENEFITS: Canvas has a feature to allow parent login directly to your account. This allows the parents to credit you incase your device fails to recognize your submissions. Lastly, the app runs smoothly on most systems, loading is never an issue. The software is greatly designed. Allowing the software to be used across hundreds of schools across the country. There are a few easter eggs. Overall I rate this app a 4/5 from a student view and from a teacher's view as well. PS: not every device works well with this software, but most software works well with inefficient technology. Tips, I would say that the app needs to have a more efficient “To Do system”. Most of the time it stops working and says “Failed to load To Do list” a lot of the time. It also isn’t very accurate. Sometimes it completely missed assignments on the To do list. *Especially on mobile*. Loading your grades also loads pretty slowly. This makes it a pain to load your grades every night. (Usually takes 10 minutes in total) to go through each class. This app is still worthy of a 4/5 it’s just generally annoying for students and some of the other reviews are what we might feel late at night. Sometimes it might not load or work. Sometimes it’s fine but a-lot of the time it’s just a pain.

Canvas has the potential of being an excellent program for online college students. The marketed features are amazing however, it needs a lot of work.
For starters, the home page is great and simple but, when you go into the class page its facial page of that class is too busy and not well organized. In short, too overwhelming. Too many steps are required to go somewhere.
The ability to use your iPad/Tablet or even your smart phone is a great feature, however it has several flaws. The page bleeds off and you can't see its entirety, thus to my previous concern on it being too busy looking.
There's no overhead to a short and sweet outlook on the entire assignments and when they're are do.
In the old software that Ashford you could take a quiz and then review it. You're allowed to take the exam 3 times, however if you're not allowed to review it then you won't be able correct and or learn your mistakes. Canvas does not allow you too review your exams after you have taken it. Although the feature where it'll take the highest score is an excellent feature.
The tutoring Servives is outdated and limited. The old program allowed you to use Skooli tutoring servives. They're a wonderful tutoring services, it's one on one face to face services that uses google grammar software. Canvas does not and does not have grammar google which essentially office windows.
The tech support often refers you back to Ashford when they have no idea what the problem is or how to solve it. The school will only help you to their best of ability however, ashford contracts the canvas services. So, with that said, they should be the ones to correct the issue a student is having.
Right now it's very buggy. I have re log in 8 to 10 times every day. Often i get booted off and have re log in again.
Like I said, Canvas has the potential of being a great program for students however they need to fix a few things.

There are VERY few issues that both students and teachers agree on, but canvas is one of them. I just clicked out of this app and came back and my draft for this was gone so it's likely alot of that info will be left out but just know, teachers hate it, students hate it, and admin hates it, the only reason we have it is "collages use it" Wich was the school boards excuse. Let's just start off with the fact that it's slow, takes forever to load Google docs (that didn't happen with classroom so I assume that's a canvas issue). Teachers pages can be there own format Wich yes, creates freedom, but causes alot of confusion with students who have to find out how to navigate each teachers page. It's incredibly hard to message other students even when working together, not to mention it can take a good 15 min to send messages to teachers that certainly don't need 15 min to send. The calendar doesent rlly make sense but the Google calendar was only somewhat useful compared but it still needs to be improved. Also teachers can't manage your documents till you submit, shouldn't be a problem except for that fact sometimes, if a page isnt properly loaded it doesent submit, and there's no way to tell if it did because the submit button doesent dissapear (because they couldn't just add a unsubmit button for some reason). Announcements pages can be very confusing, also things like, there's little distinction between assignments and modules, and a million other small things that can make it so confusing to the point where even the tech savvy kid in glasses can't or atleast have a hard time working it.
Also if you open an assignment or module you have to open in new tabs to make sure it doesent take all class period to load the home page again because it has no back button except clicking on the web browsers back button. That all leads to a situation were you have 54 tabs open from only like 3 periods.

Anyway I can't go on cause I'm about to fall asleep but the fact that I wrote all this and put more effort into it then actual essay assignments, should tell you just how much I, and everyone every student and teacher I've talked to at the school, HATE THIS APPLICATION. So if your school gets it, run for the gills. Anyway have a nice day

Reminds me of a funny story...

I couldn’t agree more. Reminds me of a funny story

An Afghan, an Albanian, and Algerian, an American, an Andorran, an Angolan, an Antiguan, an Argintine, an Armenian, and Austrailian, an Austrian, an Azerbaijani, a Bahamian, a Bahraini, a Bangladeshi, a Barbadian, a Barbudans, a Batswanan, a Belarusian, a Belgian, a Belizean, a Beninese, a Bhutanese, a Bolivian, a Bosnian, a Brazilian, a Brit, a Bruneian, a Bulgarian, a Burkinabe, a Burmese, a Burundian, a Cambodian, a Cameroonian, a Canadian, a Cape Verdean, a Central African, a Chadian, a Chilean, a Chinese, a Colombian, a Comoran, a Congolese, a Costa Rican, a Croatian, a Cuban, a Cypriot, a Czech, a Dane, a Djibouti, a Dominican, a Dutchman, an East Timorese, an Ecuadorean, an Egyptian, an Emirian, an Equatorial Guinean, an Eritrean, an Estonian, an Ethiopian, a Fijian, a Filipino, a Finn, a Frenchman, a Gabonese, a Gambian, a Georgian, a German, a Ghanaian, a Greek, a Grenadian, a Guatemalan, a Guinea-Bissauan, a Guinean, a Guyanese, a Haitian, a Herzegovinian, a Honduran, a Hungarian, an I-Kiribati, an Icelander, an Indian, an Indonesian, an Iranian, an Iraqi, an Irishman, an Israeli, an Italian, an Ivorian, a Jamaican, a Japanese, a Jordanian, a Kazakhstani, a Kenyan, a Kittian and Nevisian, a Kuwaiti, a Kyrgyz, a Laotian, a Latvian, a Lebanese, a Liberian, a Libyan, a Liechtensteiner, a Lithuanian, a Luxembourger, a Macedonian, a Malagasy, a Malawian, a Malaysian, a Maldivan, a Malian, a Maltese, a Marshallese, a Mauritanian, a Mauritian, a Mexican, a Micronesian, a Moldovan, a Monacan, a Mongolian, a Moroccan, a Mosotho, a Motswana, a Mozambican, a Namibian, a Nauruan, a Nepalese, a New Zealander, a Nicaraguan, a Nigerian, a Nigerien, a North Korean, a Northern Irishman, a Norwegian, an Omani, a Pakistani, a Palauan, a Palestinian, a Panamanian, a Papua New Guinean, a Paraguayan, a Peruvian, a Pole, a Portuguese, a Qatari, a Romanian, a Russian, a Rwandan, a Saint Lucian, a Salvadoran, a Samoan, a San Marinese, a Sao Tomean, a Saudi, a Scottish, a Senegalese, a Serbian, a Seychellois, a Sierra Leonean, a Singaporean, a Slovakian, a Slovenian, a Solomon Islander, a Somali, a South African, a South Korean, a Spaniard, a Sri Lankan, a Sudanese, a Surinamer, a Swazi, a Swede, a Swiss, a Syrian, a Taiwanese, a Tajik, a Tanzanian, a Togolese, a Tongan, a Trinidadian or Tobagonian, a Tunisian, a Turkish, a Tuvaluan, a Ugandan, a Ukrainian, a Uruguayan, a Uzbekistani, a Venezuelan, a Vietnamese, a Welshman, a Yemenite, a Zambian and a Zimbabwean all go to a nightclub...

The doorman stops them and says “Sorry I can’t let you in without a Thai.”

This app is functionally okay and does what it advertises. While it is not quite the keynote quality experience that it could be, I appreciate the many working behind the scenes to get such a complex web service into a reliable mobile app (not to mention those working on the complex web service). I have few real functionality complaints, though I will make some suggestions which I feel could make a real difference.

In my opinion, the app lacks relatability to the user - it feels foreign and a little alien, not quite belonging. Part of this is because the dashboard feels clunky or forced, rather than welcoming. Another part is that the message board is hard to work with - it is annoying to have to open every single message before it is marked as read, and there is no way to select multiple messages as a time. A third part is that it’s impossible to quickly find a specific assignment because there is no search feature - users have to scroll and scroll and scroll to find things in the app. Little things like these make users feel the app is ugly or overly difficult to use; the desire to use or see Canvas decreases. If the app were to tailor to the users a little bit better it could improve the intimacy level of the service; and while students obviously can’t hope to succeed in school without Canvas (if the school uses Canvas), if would be nice to feel that Canvas is at least a friendly service rather than a wall to push through. One way to accomplish this would be to add the ability for users to suggest features. This would improve the user’s ability to connect with the developers and be a part of the app; it also provides insight to you as to what users want and what to consider as far as updates go. The suggestions would most often reflect on ways to improve intimacy. Soon enough, users would recognize the use and power of Canvas as concerns are resolved. I’m not suggesting that the three examples I made are Canvas users’ biggest pet peeves, but they are certainly items that highlight the importance of presenting information and functionality within the app in its most effective way; the Canvas app might be able to reliable show information, but if it’s difficult to use users will not feel positive about the app. Those are the kinds of things that will show up by way of feature suggestions.

The app works well enough. It doesn’t look very pretty and the layout is difficult to navigate and different compared to other web apps; it lacks fluidity when it comes to second level tools and features. It is wildly complex in certain regards but surprisingly basic and lacking in others. Consider improving intimacy levels to help students feel less annoyed every time they have to utilize Canvas. It doesn’t have to be a “meh” or “okay” experience.

This is such an overrated app that is a mess.

canvas apparently ended up putting one of my classes grades in as all zeros and the teacher had to contact the tech department to fix it. It’s fall break and still hasn’t been solved. I don’t know if this is because my teacher is just dumb or if it’s a problem with the app; so I can’t say much regarding that problem.

On top of that, when the school year started most people couldn’t even login to canvas because of how confusing it was. You would think you could go onto canvas.com and login but you actually have to set your school email as the main email for your browser (which I refuse to do because of how many restrictions are put into my browser that way.) and click the waffle in the top right corner and go to canvas that way. This is such a small thing to complain about but many students were very confused and missed due dates because of this issue.

Now for the UI. This one is hard to critique. Canvas gives so many options for teachers to set up canvas how they like. But that’s why I hate it. I can’t exactly say this is canvas’s fault but hear me out once again. Many teachers do not know anything about user interface or technology. This means they have to create a place for their assignments on there own. This has lead to lots of confusion from my fellow classmates as no assignment end in the same place or we cannot find these assignments because teachers don’t know how to create a user friendly website/page. If canvas was anything like google classroom, it would make it the same for every class so every assignment is easy to find. Although this gives less settings, it is a lot more user friendly and makes things easy for everyone. I heard teachers complaining how confusing their meeting for creating a canvas page. “I could not remember anything. There’s so many settings that we don’t even need.” my college algebra teacher says. “It’s hard to remember how to even publish assignments” my finance teacher claims.

Another thing my algebra teacher had a problem with is that when we submit photos/scans of our work, it doesn’t put them as one document so you have to load each photo which will take about 15 seconds extra for each assignment. If he has 180 students. That’s an extra 45 minutes spent on grading. You also cannot scan documents with your selfie camera. This is a pretty big problem for specifically me because my rear camera just doesn’t work. Of course my teachers got frustrated at me when this is actually a issue that canvas can fix. Again, this seems like a small thing but seemed to create a bit of an issue.

Now I want to point out these reviews. If you go to the most favorable section. It seems like lots a elementary students have placed five star reviews. Now this at first doesn’t seem like a problem but as I kept scrolling, I realized that if the app gets enough 1 stars it’s gone. This gave me a realization that I (personally) believe that 70% of the five stars are from teachers telling their young students to 5 star the app. Therefore, it has very high ratings and the app looks better than it is. I cannot prove this but it is very likely. I remember in middle school, my English teacher told us to 5 star remind and we would get candy. Feels like the same is happening here.

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I am really glad that you guys have an APP for the iPad. It has been very useful. I am a teacher and my students have their own iPads that they use for school so having the Canvas APP has helped a lot with that. I love being able to have them work on quick bell work problems on their iPads and submit them to Canvas and have them all in Speed Grader. I also like how I can have the students submit documents through the APP. It is a bit confusing at first to submit documents but we all know that tablets are different than computers. All in all I am really pleased with this APP for what it does.

The reason I gave it 3 stars was because of what it does not do. One of the most important things that I have an issue with is that the APP does not sure a students current grade in the class. It shows them the grades on each of their assignments individually but not their grade in the class in general. It also does not show their grades for a given category. Those seem like a simple thing to fix (but I could be wrong).

My next issue has to do with the Quizzes feature on the APP. In order for the APP to really help us change how we use technology in our classrooms we need to be able to have the students do many kinds of quizzes on their iPads. The APP seems to send the kids to the web page version of Canvas for the quiz. But then there are issues with uploading documents and the typing in the text boxes doesn't go so well either. Their needs to be a lot more interface for the Quizzes for it to be really used in the classroom (especially math). I do understand that this is a much larger problem than my first problem so I do not expect an immediate solution. In fact I would rather you made sure that the quiz feature worked really well before rolling out the APP update.

As for submitting files I am okay with the way that it is set up but I think it would be easier if their was a way to open the documents without having to go to the other APP first. Notability for example lets me import documents from other APPs without me having to open the other APPs. That is more of a preference feature though.

Another feature that is laking from the APP that helped make Canvas more usable is the Calendar. Having access to the calendar allows teacher and students to be able to see what is coming up on a larger scale for all of their classes. If you can not build access to the calendar in Canvas itself you might consider having it linked to the Calendar APP on the iPad. If you have this APP across multiple platforms it would probably be easier to create its own built in calendar rather than have to link to each platforms calendar.

As a teacher I don't use the Canvas APP as much as I have the students using it. This is mostly because I can not edit any items on the APP. Their needs to be a way for teachers to edit assignments create pages on their iPads. I understand that this might not be possible through the current APP and if that is so please create a new APP that will allow teachers/administrators the ability to edit/create their courses.

Again I am very happy with how well things are working that are working on the APP and I will continue to use it in my classroom. But I certainly feel like these updates would be a major improvement that would allow Canvas to be better utilized in the classroom and as a teacher.

Canvas has reduce the amount of email that come into my inbox by a lot!

Thank you for all of the work you guys have done!

Hello, my name is Nadia A. Taylor. I’m simply a 17-year-old girl trying to learn more about what it means to be in a sorority. Today I have learned that canvas is a very realistic and good app for working women/men. It has helped me tremendously during Covid-19 and even when I didn’t necessarily need it. I was able to understand all my teachers without even personally talking to them and allowing them to know and understand who I am. I was able to get to know my peers without peering into their life. I was able to work on myself without truly working because as I said I was sick with Covid-19 and didn’t even realize how sick I was. To be completely honest I was too busy watching weird Netflix shows like “You”, “Stranger Things”, and “Ashes of Love” to truly care about real world problems.
The whole Winter me and my father were on business trips in Alabama, Las Vegas, and Irvine. Very nice and expensive places that I truly enjoyed but I think that Las Vegas needs a lot of mental help. I would know since I want to go to UC, Irvine and strictly study on how to be a psychiatrist. There are a lot of old people in Paradise Hills who simply just need help with taking out the trash or getting their mail. Yes, their children have left cameras to watch their grandparents while they “aren’t” there. However, all their grandparents care about is simply their front porch. I have watched my dad’s friends who used to work at Qualcomm stadium when the Chargers, Padres, and Aztecs were actually cool. Lose it all. They were too busy worried about what they didn’t have in life to appreciate what they do have.
A family who cares about them and just wants them to be safe at home. The police and the legal attorneys that work for all these “rough” neighborhoods are not bad people!
They only want to help the community and I believe that if a white police officer wants to help a Black/African-American community. Then they should/can/and have the ability to do so. Police Officers go through A LOT of training. I personally think Police Officers are more prepared for the unknown than most people. I took a class my sophomore year at Lincoln High School and was able to meet a Police Officer named Austin Coleman. At the time I was very mindful and just wanted to simply learn about how the Criminal Justice system works. And Austin Coleman was a very nice white man who helped me understand that it’s not about where you come from, but it’s about what you do/can do about your current situation. If you do not have a home or house to call your own or a family to call your home then find one.I’m learning a lot all on my own because my family didn’t want to teach me. I had to learn from my father who used to be an alcoholic and used to smoke weed and used to go to African-American clubs in downtown San Diego during the early 1980’s because my grandfather was a Navy Seal from Africa who grew up in Germany.
Downtown San Diego is now currently known as The World Beat Center owned by Mama Micada. Or also known as Micada Dread. She is simply an African-American woman who needs help. She has so many grandchildren in the world that she raised. She raised my father. He was just young man in his 20’s who needed a place to call their own. Fortunately for me my father joined the Nation of Islam before marrying my beautiful mother. However, my mother was raised by my Native American grandfather. So they ended their marriage about 14-15 years later and I was 3 years old at the time. My grandparents were too busy raising me because my parents were too busy going to court every single year.

In conclusion, I have learned just from this Canvas app about how to be truly appreciative what you currently have. Not what you know. Thank you to the creators of Canvas. I really appreciate this app. Please have a wonderful rest of your day!

Description
The Canvas mobile app is a Learning Management System (LMS) that was a website component but has recently developed a very straightforward update to their mobile app as well. This app is an LMS which has both a teacher component and a student that both functions independently for those users but cohesively come together to seamlessly display a variety of information on the go.
The intended audience is anyone who is trying to convey information to a larger audience in an ongoing platform, or any teacher-student class that would benefit from an LMS component to the course.
The app comes from Instructure Inc.

Review Design
I think the Canvas app is the exact version of a mobile educational app I have wanted all along in all honesty. The customization the teacher has for the course has great variety as far how to organize the layout of the different categories they want. In this case we are using the Canvas app for class, by which Farah has laid out the course very clearly and coherently. The design of the app definitely follows good I.D. in that each click progresses logically to the next section. Backwards navigation and corrections are easily made.
I had tried using the Canvas app about 2 years ago with my PLTW course and it was absolutely horrible. So, I canned it. As of 2 weeks, since I redownloaded this app for the mobile tech course, I have found that the app has done a full 1080 in every category. As of right now, I cannot find too many limitations. Only issue so far was trying to upload items to the Google Drive linked to our course from the Canvas App didn’t work… had to upload directly from Google Drive.
This app 100% supports UDL, in that the creation of the layout of the app falls completely on the teacher to choose what categories and sections are allowed throughout. Customization of layout is a little limited, but you don’t want to be able to do TOO much with layout if you want functionality to remain intact.
Educational Value
As an LMS, this app is almost entirely educationally based. It is used to do any number of educational items that are a digital extension to the physical classroom. Post assignments, content, grade assignments, discussions, share content, send private messages, notify… all available mobile.
As app productivity becomes increasingly higher year to year, the ability of someone using and LMS app like this will also keep increasing as well. Therefore, students using these apps will integrate them into their lifestyle almost like a social media app. They will learn to check, manage, submit, read from, etc., this app daily like anything else. Now obviously as this is for school work and not for pleasure the intrinsic motivation will be significantly lower but nonetheless they will learn how it will be incorporated to everyday class.
Since the users have to proactively go into the app to access the content, they will not be able to “passively learn” information from this app. In order to get the material, they will have to go in, find what content they need, and access from there. By simply opening the app, there isn’t much content to be found. Instruction on accessing the specific content will be key, and what that content is will also be key. Whether it is a video, notes, worksheet, etc.
Right now, I have not used this mobile app too much, but so far, I find it to be the most visually pleasing, and practically organized of them all. As with Google Classroom this app allows for major categories to be defined in the layout, and then sub-categories that follow accordingly. There is no flow or feed to those categories which I like. Scrolling only occurs once within an assignment or module where the actual content exists.
Pros and Cons
This app is visually stunning in that there aren’t too many conflicting colors or images that allow for confusion about where the user needs to tap or click next. The layout for the user to access the content from the creator is also extremely simple and easy to understand. The lack of a “feed” provides small screen visuals of the tabs one may click. One can post whatever digital content they want within the app. Truly a great mobile LMS
Uploading content from the mobile app itself can prove difficult. Sometimes uploading from Google Drive or from the website version seems to be the best option occasionally.
Conclusion and Recommendations
Again, as an LMS app, I find this to be truly easy to use and follow. I was reluctant when Farah said we would be using this app, but found that as a student using Canvas, I have only had a relatively easy time using successfully. Would give a 4/5

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Canvas is great with lots of data and ways to sort assignments and units for those assignments but it is really annoying how every link reloads the current tab that I am on. Right clicking and selecting open in new tab is a viable option but can you please just add target=_blank to the code for links so they automatically open within new tabs. Having to reload my tab again and again for assignments make Canvas really slow feeling. Tabs could be a problem on low end devices then an option should be added with it being automatically on open in new tab. I doubt canvas tabs take up much resources of any modern day device most people have access to.

This app has given my family stress, and severe mental frustration. Either it’s the app, or implementation. My kid is an A-student, until this app came along. The teachers can’t keep up with the grading, so the grade goes in as an F. It’s not the kid’s fault. The marks should not post, until the work has been graded. This has caused so much anxiety to my family. The school says they are under contract, so their hands are tied. 30% of kids are being sent home for having a runny nose, which is not their fault, which causes their grade to plummet. Fix the system!

I’d love to see if I have an assignment for my class, but every time I load in, if I stay on the dashboard screen for too long, it crashes! If I click on the ONE class I need to see, it crashes- my other classes will crash too, but I have a second long or so window to click something in the classroom canvas, like modules for example, and mostly prevent this from happening. Terrible app, and terrible site too! My dashboard on there just simply slows to the point where my web page has stopped responding. Buy more servers for the love of god you frugal developers.

With you latest interface update, you’ve taken away the ability to select all students in a specific course number, when emailing the whole class while in the app. I now can’t select all students at once and instead, I have to select them individually to send a group email. This was possible before the update. Please fix it. I have over 300 students in several different courses. This is not helpful. On top of it, when I select request help through the app itself, I am not allowed to send my request for help. The send button is in active. Please get it together!

I periodically change the language of my phone to one that I’m learning, but for important apps like Canvas I like to keep them in English. Which would be nice if I could, but it will constantly switch back even if I change my settings. Even uninstalling and reinstalling doesn’t change them. I don’t know how I managed to change them this time. The documentation on their website is useless, it tells you to go into your account settings and switch languages, only it doesn’t offer them on the app. I can’t wait to never have to use this poorly developed application again.

Ever since I started college, I've always used this app and I love how it's so easy to navigate and how it looks. Recently ever since the iOS 15 update, the app has been super glitchy and I am only able to press on the Canvas shells. I upload a lot of my homework here and it's worrying that the app is being very buggy/the way it is right now.

For example, if I wanted to go on the calendar, I wouldn't be able to because it freezes up when I press on the icon at the bottom, or really just any icon at the bottom. I'd give it 5 stars but this problem needs to be addressed ASAP! :(

The app is mostly fine otherwise. I cant delete these files that Canvas has saved from archived courses including all pdf uploads. This results in an app that cannot be used unless it takes up almost 8GB on my phones disc which is not very large to begin with. Im going to have to delete the app in favor of the website soon, which defeats the purpose of this app. Also, the portal to my email and all other resources within this app used to be convenient, but now the portals are not there anymore. The portals may not be the fault of the app but I cannot use it with this storage issue.

But I don’t know who else to submit this to. I had a class where I could submit an assignment an unlimited number of times. I had a typo in my paper so I resubmitted it but it shows up as a completely separate attempt. This is just frankly asinine. If I have unlimited attempts, why can I not delete past ones? This makes no sense from any standpoint. It now requires an additional (and needless) explanation to the professor explaining which attempt is the “correct” one and then the first attempt serves absolutely no purpose whatsoever. Other classroom and education software has this VERY BASIC function. Why not Canvas?

I would not recommend Canvas to my worst enemy. There are too many bells and whistles and small Canas-specific intricacies that a normal human(student, parent, teacher, whoever) won’t learn until they begin using the product, which will be frustrating because things should work logically, but there are too many bells and whistles for Canvas. Instructure, the Canvas company provides a 10 hour training course, which is more of an advertisement for what their products can do, other than what would be beneficial to the user, which is counterproductive. YouTube videos are the best source of tech training.

Canvas does not play well with PDFs.

I hate the Canvas Student app a lot. The main reason is that whenever I exit the app and go back when it is still open, the app completely reboots! This means that I can NEVER view a document in a folder or module, or work on an assignment or message, without EVERYTHING going away and being erased. It does not save work, nor does it save the location you were before you switched apps.

It also displays fonts incorrectly, which it is doing right NOW as I am writing this review and it is in an ugly font that is not what the review-writing pop-up is supposed to display. There are more problems with Student, but the developers need to take care of them, regardless of if they are in my review or not.

Although I am a student, I do find some of the canvas features in submitting assignments not practical. If you submit something, you cannot delete that file and your instructor will be able to view it, even before it’s graded. I submitted the wrong file for my class and I turned it in a week early, but I could not remove it and my teacher was able to view it. It was just another assignment for another class, but it was still unprofessional, and the instructor wasted time viewing it. Unsubmitting assignments is a good feature, one of the features that makes google classroom good, and it should be added on canvas. After grading, the assignment should be locked, but before then there should still be options to unsubmit it.

I am a developer, and professionally qualified In coding to say this: this app, and the vast majority who label this 5 stars in “hooray this app rocks!” Don’t know what they’re talking about. This app glitches out in random assignments, won’t let you view your own posts randomly (which I am looking into believe me) and last semester, I waited a full 8 months before I could even login to my college’s main website via this app. There are serious flaws with this, and my rapport in usage of this, in conjunction with my knowledge of computer and programming negates at least 1,000 of these 5 start reviews. Take it from someone who knows what they’re talking about, this app works sometimes, but don’t count on it to be reliable.

This could be a great app, except that it needs a ‘Canvas Master’ that would help all the teachers to enter the data similarly.

As it exists currently, some teachers put data one place, others in other places, making it a goose-hunt to try and figure out what’s going on.

It often posts inaccurate data: “Item not submitted. Score 12/15” (you can only get a score if submitted, right?)

I get email notifications that are a tease: ‘Test scores are ready!’ But you have to go to links to find the test score, so the email is a chore.

A user guide of ‘best practices’ would also be great for us users. I am aware that I can reduce my notifications, but does that make me a bad parent?

As it exists, it takes a lot of time, effort, and work to get value from it.

I will always like google classroom better. I don’t know why we switched to canvas like can we just have one summit button.. not one per page . I recommend google classroom it’s easier to use. Plus you can see the question and reply to it at the same time. Edit: I’m also getting multiple “to do’s” of the same assignment and it’s annoying because then I have to do everything twice so I get it out of the “to do’s” list, button wtv it’s called. I feel like it’s hard to use not just for students but for teachers too. and I think the assignments should leave the “to do” list after it’s due.. that would make it easier to find assignments (because you wouldn’t have to look at the due date just the name since the assignments would go to the top each time/day) and just in general. this is my second day using the app. - just my op

This system is terrible! If a district truly would like parent support a more user friendly system is available! Infinite campus, google classroom for examples. We have three children in AASD. As a parent it is hard to navigate, far too many clicks to find grades, all three children lumped into one pile of classes. A parent literally has to search through all classes to find each student, then dig further through each class in search of missing assignments and grades. Totally get the feeling the district does not care to have parents involved! Each student should be separated as the class titles do not clearly indicate, grade or child in class, just on long unorganized list of classes. I am certainly disappointed in the tool, it’s like having all Phillip head screws and being given a star shaped screw driver to assemble project.

This app version 6.16.0 works fine on my phone for what it is. By that I mean I can’t download Asynch videos and watch offline, but it works as intended with drawbacks. However I downloaded the app to my iPad which is brand new and of course the 6.17.0 version downloaded. Well, it’s not even showing I have any classes I’m enrolled in. After reaching out to the app team multiple times, all they do is blame my school then blame Apple for their poor performing app. When I finally gave up with them and asked if they would escalate the issue since it wasn’t resolved, they said no since it’s not their problem. Real top notch team over there.

In response to Canvas on my review- my problem had a very detailed examination on my part with your tech team. It doesn’t matter that this review isn’t detailed. It was explained to your teams through reporting to your tech support team, so I don’t need a guide for how to contact them. And no- your team did not try to help me. I solved the problem through a random back door route of using the QR code from the app version on my phone to download the app on my iPad. I explained this fix to your team so they could share it with others and hopefully figure out the issue with app version on iPad iOS.