Odyssey Wilson
As the internet has become increasingly prevalent throughout the last few decades, online learning has become a standard. With online learning came the development of learning management systems. Oregon State University has been using Canvas for the past couple years after switching from Blackboard in 2014 in attempts to find a learning management system to meet our expectations and needs as a university.
The presented reason for the switch was to find a learning management system that provides excellent teaching, learning, and communication capabilities yet teachers and students continue to have issues with Canvas. Rather than switching to a different learning management system, however, we provide recommendations for how Oregon State’s use of Canvas could be changed to better understand and take advantage of the features that it provides.
As we discovered in our research, there are problems with the ways that learning management systems are being exposed to teachers and students. As funding allows, we would like to see instructors be better versed in Canvas’ features and for students to be educated on how to use it before coming to college. This training would specifically target new students and less technologically savvy instructors, however everyone on campus could benefit from the information.
As a group of both eCampus and on campus students who have seen how Canvas has been integrated into the OSU experience, we would like to see the struggles that we faced regarding learning management systems be fixed for the next waves of students!
Thank you,
Odyssey Wilson, Amanda Hooser, and Jake Wadleigh
eLearn @ OSU
