First, when my school switched from Blackboard to Canvas, I was annoyed: Oh great, another application to learn. I'm still worried, still scribbling notes, still anticipating fails. Fast forward to Teaching in the Time of COVID: I'll be teaching my first remote, live, Zoom classes this fall. I thought, Well, I'm not interested in teaching any online classes, so I have no use for this online software application. I'm almost as venerable as you (47.5 years old), and though I'm an educator who uses Canvas extensively now, I was resistant to a "Learning Management System" (LMS) when my institution first started with Blackboard, oh, about a decade ago. Thank you for hearing me out.įirst, I understand your fears and frustrations. I realize no one is obligated to to offer me any guidance or support, but I sure hope that someone out there can relate to me even a little and inspire me to keep going with just a kind word or two, and maybe something that can help me understand Canvas and Pasadena City College. Worse, online courses seem to offer absolutely no words of encouragement from neither instructors or fellow students and for a school like Pasadena City College which prides itself on caring about the welfare and well-being of each and every one of its students, this leaves even more confused and disheartened. I've just started but already feel as if I'm flunking out. I was told that Canvas was "friendly" but in my opinion, it's anything but. It's not like I can even ask the person standing next to me to help me out. I can't seem to reach my instructor or classmates (if that's what you call them anymore) and I don't even know if I'm even submitting my assignments to them. And although there seems to be a lot of younger people who are extremely familiar with it, I can't seem to find anyone willing to help me become familiar with it. I have no idea about how I'm to use Canvas. I'm doing the best I can but I feel extremely confused and uneasy. I wanted to learn this technology but now I find that I'm expected to already know it. I find myself forced to take online courses and it's as if I'm expected to be some kind of expert with this technology. I was looking forward to being on the campus of Pasadena City College, sitting in an actual classroom surrounded by warm bodies and maybe making a few new friends. At 55 years old, I was thrilled at the prospect of returning to school after almost twenty-five years to study animation, hoping to make at least one of my dreams come true. The things I maybe took for granted, being able to hug the people at my church, shake a stranger's hand and make a new friend and just standing outside and taking a deep breath, it feels as this has been snatched away, and I find myself being dragged kicking and screaming into an uncertain, and in someways, more unfriendly world. My name is John Chavis and like everyone else in the world today, this pandemic has pretty much turned my world upside down.
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