[Discussions] Restore features in discussions from previous version of Canvas
Hi, I've been teaching with Canvas for about 10 years and the recent changes to the way discussions work are a huge downgrade in functionality. There are several issues that make workflow and tracking student responses much more difficult. For example, coming in to read a discussion thread, we can no longer read the actual discussion in the order that it took place, because the newest posts are shown at the top. Additionally, it's no longer possible as the instructor to minimize discussions and scroll through and get a bird's eye view on who's responded, because the only option now shows the full text of each original reply. And it's also very difficult now to track new responses as they come in through the week, because the option to sort by unread (and make read posts temporarily disappear) is no longer available. These are significant losses in functionality from the previous version. Also, the new design is just much less clean and clear to navigate than the previous design.
Things that were available previously that I request you please, please restore: --Please bring back the ability fully compress discussions (so that no text of the response is shown; just the name and heading) and only expand those of your choosing --Newest discussions are now shown at the top of the page rather than at the bottom, so that an ongoing discussion can't be read chronologically from top to bottom. Please create an option to put it back to the old way so that a coherent ongoing discussion can be followed from start to finish. -- It's no longer possible to sort by all "unread" discussions the way we were able to with the previous version. Please bring this back. --Bring back the clean simplicity of design of the previous discussions; the boxes around individual replies were very helpful and it would be great to have those back.
instructor
