The world may not have ended in 2020, but for students here at Summit, the apocalypse has finally arrived — and it’s in the form of Canvas’s to-do list.
When students stepped back into Summit’s halls -– now “wings” — they were met with a multitude of changes. Shorter classes, an advisory period and stricter phone policies seemed hard enough to handle, but no one expected the Canvas mobile app to garner the most discussion.
The to-do list, a feature of Canvas where items are organized by due date, no longer removes assignments after they’ve been submitted. Additionally, the “done” feature, which allows students to remove unwanted assignments, such as those turned in on paper, is mysteriously missing.
Summit senior Reily Weisgerber reminisced on the list, saying that “it was so satisfying to see [assignments] disappear, especially after a long week when I’ve put so much effort into getting them done.”
Similarly, Summit senior Anika Endries explained that the lack of a clear submission option can actually discourage students and make them feel unproductive.
The to-do list’s betrayal is subtle but effective. Students have not only lost a powerful organizational tool, but the hit of dopamine they get when it says “well done.”
“It used to be my planner,” said Endries.
But don’t worry, students! All hope is not lost.
Librarian tech Catherine Blue has seen the fallout from this disaster. “Many students have come in with the issue,” she said, adding that the school’s IT department has already contacted Canvas about the problem. The verdict: Canvas itself will need to push out an update before the app’s to-do list stops clinging to assignments.
Until then, there’s a workaround. Blue recommends ditching the app and opening Canvas in a browser instead. “Students, please use the web version,” she said, noting that the to-do list should function normally there, so long as you use card view—the dashboard style where the to-do list appears alongside each class.
And, on the bright side, maybe this apocalypse isn’t about tearing apart our sanity, but giving Summit students one more thing to face together.
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