Canvas by Instructure

I love this program, the app as well. It's treated me well the past few years that I have been in college. If there's schools that use other programs, they should change to this one ! The ONLY issues I have are this : One. I wish that with new upcoming semesters I would be able to look up all my classes like I can do on a computer and add them to my main page , as long as they are published and ready to be added. This isn't a big problem since I can always use the computer laptop to do this, but it would be nice to do on my phone. Two. When I get notifications for files added and announcements, and I click in to it on my iPhone, it only brings me to the first page that you always are greeted with that just has all your classes and stuff. It would be really cool if from the phone we could click into that notification and be brought directly to that announcement, assignment, or whatever else. Again, minor stuff that would be cool if changed, but LOVE CANVAS!

The Canvas student app is really responsive and high functioning, almost easier to use sometimes than the actual desktop site. It makes doing school work while on the go a total breeze. HOWEVER, I knocked a star off because there is just one MAJOR issue that I hope they can fix in a future update. I’ve noticed that whenever I navigate away from the app and then return (for example, checking a module for an assignment due date, navigating away to my calendar app, then navigating back to canvas to read further) the app backs out from where I was and returns to the main screen. This is really ANNOYING and I wish it would be fixed. I don’t close the app, I simply switch to a different one, but when I return I have to navigate all the way back to where I was, often needing to click through multiple menu bars to get back to my place. It’s really aggravating when trying to multitask (as all students usually are), especially when phones these days are trying to make multitasking more intuitive and easier to manage. Hopefully that can be fixed because otherwise this is a really successful app.

I'm getting much happier with the new updates that have rolled out recently. Most of the functionality is intact, which makes it really good for getting a forum post or two done during down time somewhere. Some things that are still a bit difficult are picking up discussion conversations that you have posted in. There is no way to quickly find or jump to posts that you have already made, which makes it difficult in larger classes with protracted discussions. Perhaps tagging people in a Facebook name type format and then being able to jump to that particular point in the discussions would help this? The only other major problem that I've found (and this may just be an IOS problem) is that if I switch to another app to copy and paste some material or even just the web page url itself, the app closes itself and I lost my entire post. Like I said, this may just be an IOS thing with memory management but it is still a major pain in the rear to lose a long post that was typed on a mobile keyboard. Overall it works well for me and I'm pretty happy with it! Keep up the improvements, it's about there!

From the beginning, the app was fine. I enjoyed using it and it was a good way of keeping up with my grades (assuming my professors uploaded them in the first place), but this recent update, as of April 16, is annoying to say the least. If your class are heavily discussion based, good luck. You now have to scroll though everyone’s posts and comments to finally reach your own. It gets hard to tell which one is a post and which one is a comment because there’s no real indicator except for a very thin gray line. If you want to edit a previous comment or past that you made? Tough luck, you’ll just have to replay again and add to the madness that is already this discussion board. Not only that but the scrolling never loads everything and often gets stuck when it reaches the bottom and has to load more also causing the app to crash. It was so much more efficient when all of the comments were in folders under the original post. Not only that but the notifications are still broken in the sense of, when you get a notification and you click on it, it still doesn’t take you to the right page.

I enjoy using this instead of having to log on every time on a web browser and having to boot up my computer, it’s also wherever I am. I do have a couple of occasional issues though, sometimes the app doesn’t load, it just keeps showing the canvas logo rotating forever (I think it may have something to do with having do not disturb on, I don’t know if it’s exclusive to my 2017 model iPad Pro 10.5 or if it could be a generic issue). Also, when writing a long reply on a discussion, the letters sometimes can start to fall behind, even to the point of a full second delay and then it will start back spacing if you made a mistake and won’t stop for a minute. This problem may have been fixed just this week with a canvas update (not the app, just canvas in general). The only thing I would like added is the option to edit a post/reply in discussions, I really wish I could do this without having to log on online and just use the app. But overall all, this is a great app to use.