By: Bsant Mohamed
This fall, students logged into a new reality: Google classroom is out, and Canvas is in. This switch was poorly received by not only students, but teachers and school staff as well. “Google Classroom was way easier!” “Canvas is too complicated!” “What even is Canvas???”
Canvas is an app that allows students to access their courses and groups using a mobile or computer device. Students can submit assignments, participate in discussions, view grades, and access course materials. The app also provides access to course calendars, To-Do items, notifications, and inbox messages.
As days leading into the first day of school, students’ complaints became more and more vocal; teachers usually have their classes up a few days before school so that students can join, however, even as of December, there are still teachers who haven’t made a Canvas class. While district leaders tout Canvas as more robust because of Canvas’ extra features like collaboration discussions, the switch raises concerns and questions about cost, training for teachers, and whether it truly benefits students.
“It’s why I failed my AP Chemistry test,” said Khadim Fall. “The lack of a calendar system or an ability to easily put assignments up caused me to not know about the test until the day before.”
“My teacher didn’t have an assignment about it and I couldn’t find out if we had a test or not except for asking someone,” Khadim continued.
“Google classroom was simple to use and was understood by both the staff and the student body. This allowed for seamless communication between students and teachers,” says Amir Muhammed. “Just this week in one of my classes, my teacher tried to post a Google Form quiz and she was not able to easily grade each because it was not set up in the same way as Google Classroom, leading us all to get a zero and making us retake the quiz. It has also been frustrating having to save every document as a pdf to upload which takes up space on my computer,” Amir Muhammed continued.
The switch to Canvas overwhelmed the teachers a lot more than anyone else however. For them, they needed to figure out how to navigate a new platform/new way of teaching for hundreds of students. English teacher Mr. Pappas says, “It was a virtual training session for hundreds and hundreds of teachers so it wasn’t really interactive… and that was all that was really provided.”
However, teachers like Mr. Watson, an 11th grade Architecture teacher, is a Canvas Ambassador for Poly, and is currently providing teachers with resources to get them more accustomed to Canvas, teaching them the overall functionality of the app. Mr. Watson has been using Canvas for well over 5 years and has become very acquainted with the app.
Schools in all 50 states use Canvas, which is specifically for college classes. Some states use Canvas for high schools, such as Florida, North & South Carolina, Nebraska, Nevada, and more. Alexis Maison, a 12th grade student at Tampa Bay Technical High School has this to say about her experience with Canvas:
“Canvas is great, it’s really easy to use,” says Alexis. “The To-Do list extension is a life saver and [the extension] Better Canvas makes it 2x better.”
“If your teacher uses it properly, it tells you everything you need to know about your assignments,” Alexis continues, “I guess it’s not the assignments or Canvas itself, it’s more the teachers. The teachers here have been using it for years, so it’s normal,” Alexis says.
Unlike Google Classroom, students are able to download an extension that allows them to customize their Canvas Dashboard to make it look aesthetically pleasing, which students say, helps their motivation to get work done when they have an aesthetically pleasing and organized screen to look at. Unfortunately, the Baltimore City Public School District has the extension blocked, having students look at a “boring” Canvas Dashboard all day long.
I interviewed Stacey Davis, the Coordinator who works at the Instructional Technology and Virtual Learning Office at the Baltimore City Public Schools District, to get insight into what the decision planning was for this switch, and if funding was the actual “cause” of why we won’t be using Google Classroom.
There were a bunch of rumors around school about what the real reason was for BCPS to “get rid of Google classroom” and one of those theories was of funding.
“We were using the free version of Google [Classroom]. With the free version of Google [Classroom], there was no way–centrally as a district–to support teachers. We couldn’t get into a teacher’s class if they were having trouble inviting a student into their class, unless they invited us as a teacher,” said Davis. “So we looked at moving to the paid version of Google [Classroom] but once we started doing this’, number 1, Google didn’t respond, so we couldn’t even look at their proposal. But when you look at pricing in general, they were really about the same cost per student. Canvas was a little bit more [in price] but it brought so much more to the table, such as the ability to assign work with various due dates or to certain students makes it easier for the teacher to personalize learning and merge multiple courses into 1 cross listed course that allows the teacher to create an assignment for all sections at once but grades will go to the correct grade book in Infinite Campus.” said Davis.
Although Canvas does bring a lot more to the table, it seems like teachers weren’t really getting it to begin with. That’s why the Baltimore City Public Schools District made workshop events and meetings with all City school teachers to teach them everything about Canvas. The process of getting teachers used to Canvas started in February of 2025, and they taught teachers how to make blueprint courses, which–in Davis’ words– “that they are hopefully using.”
“On May 16th, they trained ALL of the high school teachers, with the exception of math because they were required to go to another training,” said Davis. Since not everyone was going to be there for the training, they created an online Asynch course that had the same content, and teachers were supposed to go through those training sessions. When summer arrived, the district brought teachers in to go more in depth with the tools Canvas offers, and have them start building up their pages.
Finally, in August, any teacher who hadn’t been to any of the trainings, was SUPPOSED to come to training provided during August. “At the end of the day, I am not these teachers’ bosses, it does become dependent on the teacher at some point to come into those trainings and learn it,” noted Davis. “We will continue doing training, and we have done school visits and are continuing doing those visits to work with teachers during their planning periods or afterschool to answer any specific questions, help them publish their classes,” said Davis.
