Anecdotally, most professors already hate Canvas, Brightspace, Blackboard, or are at least indifferent…but are forced to use it by admin, who put other constraints that harm teaching like enforcing grade inflation (because otherwise students will drop out, and the college won’t get their oversized tuition).
Although college education’s problems are far deeper than LLMs. IMO the biggest problem is that most students go only for a degree, so don’t pay attention; why should OP’s professor put more effort into teaching if they may be the only one to benefit from it? In fact, I’d recommend greatly increasing LLMs and CMSs to teach courses, so that for such students the professors are absent, because they are completely unnecessary; but students like OP who actually want to learn beyond the test can still reach out to professors and work on research, do independent studies, etc. with closer supervision (since the professor doesn’t have to supervise lots of bored students who are, not even wrong in, only going to college for a semi-decent "career").
Interesting article. I wonder how much of the problems with either LMS or AI usage are to be ultimately pinned on the faculty themselves. The article does say that too many of the faculty "like the convenience and like being able to phone it in". Canvas simply constructs the exact destructive incentive that exacerbates this tendency: as the article says, Canvas is ultimately a compliance and accreditation tool, not a learning tool, and so it makes accreditation easier and easier, while the learning part is still left to the teachers. Is it not that Canvas simply does what it is supposed to do? Is it not that it is on the educational institutions to ensure real standards of quality? Instructure Inc. is not the one that overprioritizes accreditation at the expense of learning.
That said, I see potential in the idea that this separation of "accreditation" and "learning" is exactly the problem.
The author has linked two other blog posts to this one (the ones linked in "bad teaching" and "ridiculous standards") that, in my opinion, target the core of the issue better. I'm not sure if Canvas is really at the heart of these problems, as the article asserts, or if it, just like AI, is exposing harmful societal incentives that we have been living with for ages.
There's a comment under the article that basically shows what I'm saying. It's possible for a teacher to have an easier time teaching with Canvas, while not sacrificing the critical human aspect of learning. I do concur that it is simply a lot harder to do this now.
I put my kids in private school for precisely this reason. They're going to excel in life not because I gave them an opportunity other kids didn't have, but because tools like Canvas took that opportunity from everyone else and I found a way to help them escape that nightmare.
Canvas is a slightly more modern and private equity Moodle for the banal transactions of student/instruction life and not actually for learning.
It’s nice it helps instructors for sure, but it’s never really been about the students.
Students are just water boarded with a multitude of too many different tools to different tools from canvas that aren’t connected nor work together for the student experience.
Learning management systems can be for managing the learners and access to learning, but rarely about the learning or learning experience or learning outcomes.
These platforms are too often so entrenched and anchored in earning in the past that they can’t see let alone reach the present or future.
This probably won't be a popular opinion but this article is off the rails. I'm tempted to use the word "crazy" but maybe that's a bit mean.
LMS systems just digitize what was already being done with paper. This is why all 5 points are completely nuts:
1: Restricting how faculty teach and students learn: Did faculty not break courses down into sections/modules/chapters before LMS came along? Did faculty not re-use course materials year after year before LMS? When I grew up I was doing work on worksheets whose copies of copies of copies were clearly run through the copier dozens of times. Faculty can arrange courses on LMS however they want, they can even keep some of the work off of the LMS entirely, but most choose not to because that's extra effort for little/no gain.
2: Cognitive offloading: This section blatantly misrepresents research that is comparing taking notes to typing notes or using a tablet, which isn't the same as using an LMS to organize coursework. Generally your LMS isn't a note-taking or studying tool in itself, and if you stop using LMS you aren't stopping students from taking notes on iPads or laptops in lecture (unless you are banning those devices, which, fine, do that then!). It's really odd, it almost comes across as if the author doesn't know what an LMS does, or perhaps the author had an agenda to find unrelated scientific research to back up the idea that the LMS is bad.
3: Invasion of student privacy: You don't have any privacy while taking tests. When you take a test with pen and paper you are in a room where the professor is watching every move you make including whether or not you decide to pick your nose and eat it. Bringing up data breaches is almost entirely unrelated and is a general risk of modern existence.
4. Reiterating student privacy concerns: I don't love the aggregation of data to a single company either, but the example of "every message students sent to professors and you sent back, through campus, was part of the deal" is yet another instance of "you don't have privacy when you are communicating with faculty." Universities just need to step up the privacy demands they negotiate into their contracts with LMS providers. This is not an inherent issue with the technology. Also, the fact that Canvas is owned by private equity is irrelevant. Every Ivy League school is "private equity."
5: Canvas encourages student grade obsession: This has to be the most ridiculously coddling and infantilizing claim of them all. Is the anxiety of getting grades better or worse when waiting to get my grade back on a piece of paper? I can't see how this is a real difference between LMS and traditional pen and paper education at any fundamental level. If anything, I'd argue there's more anxiety with paper systems. For many quizzes and tests I took with an LMS system, I would get the grade back instantly. Isn't it also true that every LMS out there allows customization of how grades are delivered, or allows you to not use that functionality at all?
The crazy part of this critique is that Canvas is still an open source LMS product. Universities can self-host it and avoid points 3 and 4 and keep data entirely within the walls of the university as well as customize it however they'd like. Simon Fraser University and National Taiwan University do exactly that. I realize that essentially no significantly sized US school bothers to do that, but it is an option. And as the marketshare chart points out, one of the big three is moodle, which is more frequently self-hosted and is open source. So, again, I think this article is placing blame at the wrong place. I think a critique of Instructure the company and Canvas seems warranted, but that's less than half of what this article is doing if you ask me, it's critiquing the LMS as a concept. That is where I take major issue with what this article is doing.
The final piece that makes me a little peeved at this article is that it doesn't mention the alternative to having LMS in our world, which is less access to education. A dictatorial march back to "the old days" of pen and paper and traditional learning means less access to education. It would mean that people with busy schedules, childcare obligations, people who work nights and odd hours, people with transportation challenges, etc, can't make it to school. My last degree was 100% online. I don't know how it would have worked without an LMS involved. Did I learn less effectively than someone in person with a pen and paper? Maybe I didn't learn as well as they did, but at least I got to learn something.
I found it strange as well that the article cited an unrelated study for notetaking. Also, I didn't know Canvas could be self-hosted like that. That's neat. I hope more schools take the time to do that, even if the chance is pretty remote.
I imagine it’s not easy to self-host. I certainly won’t pretend the company is making it easy to do so.
But it also seems like one of the most popular options (moodle) is OSS and typically self-hosted.
So if it was me and I was writing this article I’d be addressing it at educational institutions and the way they use LMS. Because there’s just no way you’re going to convince anyone to stop using them.
Anecdotally, most professors already hate Canvas, Brightspace, Blackboard, or are at least indifferent…but are forced to use it by admin, who put other constraints that harm teaching like enforcing grade inflation (because otherwise students will drop out, and the college won’t get their oversized tuition).
Although college education’s problems are far deeper than LLMs. IMO the biggest problem is that most students go only for a degree, so don’t pay attention; why should OP’s professor put more effort into teaching if they may be the only one to benefit from it? In fact, I’d recommend greatly increasing LLMs and CMSs to teach courses, so that for such students the professors are absent, because they are completely unnecessary; but students like OP who actually want to learn beyond the test can still reach out to professors and work on research, do independent studies, etc. with closer supervision (since the professor doesn’t have to supervise lots of bored students who are, not even wrong in, only going to college for a semi-decent "career").
Interesting article. I wonder how much of the problems with either LMS or AI usage are to be ultimately pinned on the faculty themselves. The article does say that too many of the faculty "like the convenience and like being able to phone it in". Canvas simply constructs the exact destructive incentive that exacerbates this tendency: as the article says, Canvas is ultimately a compliance and accreditation tool, not a learning tool, and so it makes accreditation easier and easier, while the learning part is still left to the teachers. Is it not that Canvas simply does what it is supposed to do? Is it not that it is on the educational institutions to ensure real standards of quality? Instructure Inc. is not the one that overprioritizes accreditation at the expense of learning.
That said, I see potential in the idea that this separation of "accreditation" and "learning" is exactly the problem.
The author has linked two other blog posts to this one (the ones linked in "bad teaching" and "ridiculous standards") that, in my opinion, target the core of the issue better. I'm not sure if Canvas is really at the heart of these problems, as the article asserts, or if it, just like AI, is exposing harmful societal incentives that we have been living with for ages.
There's a comment under the article that basically shows what I'm saying. It's possible for a teacher to have an easier time teaching with Canvas, while not sacrificing the critical human aspect of learning. I do concur that it is simply a lot harder to do this now.
I put my kids in private school for precisely this reason. They're going to excel in life not because I gave them an opportunity other kids didn't have, but because tools like Canvas took that opportunity from everyone else and I found a way to help them escape that nightmare.
LMS facilitated surveillance is particularly relevant at a time when academic freedom is under assault.
The state of Alabama just passed a law prohibiting all state workers (college professors included) from using the term “Gulf of Mexico”.
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/government/state-policy/...
Texas A&M university has censored teaching Plato’s philosophy because he described same-sex relationships.
https://www.aaup.org/academe/issue/fall-2026/legal-watch-def...
Hating AI and Canvas are not mutually exclusive positions.
Great piece.
Canvas is a slightly more modern and private equity Moodle for the banal transactions of student/instruction life and not actually for learning.
It’s nice it helps instructors for sure, but it’s never really been about the students.
Students are just water boarded with a multitude of too many different tools to different tools from canvas that aren’t connected nor work together for the student experience.
Learning management systems can be for managing the learners and access to learning, but rarely about the learning or learning experience or learning outcomes.
These platforms are too often so entrenched and anchored in earning in the past that they can’t see let alone reach the present or future.
This probably won't be a popular opinion but this article is off the rails. I'm tempted to use the word "crazy" but maybe that's a bit mean.
LMS systems just digitize what was already being done with paper. This is why all 5 points are completely nuts:
1: Restricting how faculty teach and students learn: Did faculty not break courses down into sections/modules/chapters before LMS came along? Did faculty not re-use course materials year after year before LMS? When I grew up I was doing work on worksheets whose copies of copies of copies were clearly run through the copier dozens of times. Faculty can arrange courses on LMS however they want, they can even keep some of the work off of the LMS entirely, but most choose not to because that's extra effort for little/no gain.
2: Cognitive offloading: This section blatantly misrepresents research that is comparing taking notes to typing notes or using a tablet, which isn't the same as using an LMS to organize coursework. Generally your LMS isn't a note-taking or studying tool in itself, and if you stop using LMS you aren't stopping students from taking notes on iPads or laptops in lecture (unless you are banning those devices, which, fine, do that then!). It's really odd, it almost comes across as if the author doesn't know what an LMS does, or perhaps the author had an agenda to find unrelated scientific research to back up the idea that the LMS is bad.
3: Invasion of student privacy: You don't have any privacy while taking tests. When you take a test with pen and paper you are in a room where the professor is watching every move you make including whether or not you decide to pick your nose and eat it. Bringing up data breaches is almost entirely unrelated and is a general risk of modern existence.
4. Reiterating student privacy concerns: I don't love the aggregation of data to a single company either, but the example of "every message students sent to professors and you sent back, through campus, was part of the deal" is yet another instance of "you don't have privacy when you are communicating with faculty." Universities just need to step up the privacy demands they negotiate into their contracts with LMS providers. This is not an inherent issue with the technology. Also, the fact that Canvas is owned by private equity is irrelevant. Every Ivy League school is "private equity."
5: Canvas encourages student grade obsession: This has to be the most ridiculously coddling and infantilizing claim of them all. Is the anxiety of getting grades better or worse when waiting to get my grade back on a piece of paper? I can't see how this is a real difference between LMS and traditional pen and paper education at any fundamental level. If anything, I'd argue there's more anxiety with paper systems. For many quizzes and tests I took with an LMS system, I would get the grade back instantly. Isn't it also true that every LMS out there allows customization of how grades are delivered, or allows you to not use that functionality at all?
The crazy part of this critique is that Canvas is still an open source LMS product. Universities can self-host it and avoid points 3 and 4 and keep data entirely within the walls of the university as well as customize it however they'd like. Simon Fraser University and National Taiwan University do exactly that. I realize that essentially no significantly sized US school bothers to do that, but it is an option. And as the marketshare chart points out, one of the big three is moodle, which is more frequently self-hosted and is open source. So, again, I think this article is placing blame at the wrong place. I think a critique of Instructure the company and Canvas seems warranted, but that's less than half of what this article is doing if you ask me, it's critiquing the LMS as a concept. That is where I take major issue with what this article is doing.
The final piece that makes me a little peeved at this article is that it doesn't mention the alternative to having LMS in our world, which is less access to education. A dictatorial march back to "the old days" of pen and paper and traditional learning means less access to education. It would mean that people with busy schedules, childcare obligations, people who work nights and odd hours, people with transportation challenges, etc, can't make it to school. My last degree was 100% online. I don't know how it would have worked without an LMS involved. Did I learn less effectively than someone in person with a pen and paper? Maybe I didn't learn as well as they did, but at least I got to learn something.
I found it strange as well that the article cited an unrelated study for notetaking. Also, I didn't know Canvas could be self-hosted like that. That's neat. I hope more schools take the time to do that, even if the chance is pretty remote.
I imagine it’s not easy to self-host. I certainly won’t pretend the company is making it easy to do so.
But it also seems like one of the most popular options (moodle) is OSS and typically self-hosted.
So if it was me and I was writing this article I’d be addressing it at educational institutions and the way they use LMS. Because there’s just no way you’re going to convince anyone to stop using them.
I agree, the article mainly seemed like it was trying to divert anger at AI to anger at LMS, which is absurd.
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