Parental observation in canvas complicated with three children!

[trberta]

  This idea has been developed and deployed to Canvas

  Idea will be open for vote Wed. September 2, 2015 - Wed. December 2, 2015  Learn more about voting...

We have three children at the same high school.  We have registered as Canvas observers, and added all three children to our watch list. With 8 class periods, that's 24 potential classes to watch, and they appear to be listed ALPHABETICALLY, without an obvious way to filter by student, or clearly identify which student is taking which class.

Our three children have very different learning styles and levels of achievement, which demand three very different levels of observation.  Our temporary workaround will be very "clunky" (an old technical term meaning not user-friendly).  We are going to have to set up three separate parental accounts, using three separate parent email addresses, and observe one student in each account.

I am excited about using your system and at first blush it seems to have a number of advantages over MyBigCampus that we used last year.  However, if we can't look at one student at a time, or somehow sort things differently, it could be a frustrating year.  Can you help us?

  Comments from Instructure

May 2016 Update:

Please find more info at Canvas Studio: Canvas Parent

[kyleandamy]

Please add a feature to bring up classes by student, and also for the student's name to be listed next to their classes when e-mail notifications are sent out.  I have twins in 8th grade, so when I get notices for 8th grade classes, I have no way of knowing which of my girls the notice applies to.  It's frustrating, and makes me not even want to use Canvas.

[BethCrook]

We are K-12, but do not allow parent access.  Rather, in boarding schools, we have faculty advisors who teach and "observe" their advisees.  Right now, a teaching faculty member will log in and see 15+ courses on their  Dashboard between their 4 courses they teach and all of the courses they are "observing".  They have no way to indicate which courses are for which Advisee.  

Sorry, it's Monday morning, I hope this makes some sense!

[fiefamily]

Beth...there may be a workaround for you.

Our school's observers have a similar problem.  In the observer's 'Courses' view, there is no student name indicator, only <course> is identified.  For example,  I see a mixture of 19 courses (some shared by multiple students per observer).  There is no standard naming convention (so some show only <course name>, some show <course name.teacher name>, some <course number>, & some <course name.academic year>, etc.).

However, for our Observer accounts, in our 'Grades' view, I'm able to see a list of 21 courses each referencing <student,course name>.  I'm not sure if the data we see in the 'Grades' view is based on configurable settings, or standard functionality for our version, or what, but you might look into how to configure the 'Grades' view to show the student name if it doesn't already.

[jennfritsch]

I am a parent to 4 children, two in middle school and two in elementary school.

My biggest issue is that the calendar is useless to me... The courses in alphabetical order and the fact that I am only allowed to see 10 courses at a time....

The feature I really need is to be able to switch views, I want to be able to select Child #1, and see his calendar, then select Child #2, and see his calendar.... and so on.

[echen]

Parents of two kids have similar issues. It would be nice if the system split students for parental/observer views of homework calendar items, so they can toggle between students within a specific UI area.

[mark_robinson]

I would like to be able to sort by child....and also add and subtract classes from the dashboard like I can do with the calendar...

[Renee_Carney]

This idea is In Development.  Comments will continue, but voting has been closed.

[BethCrook]

So excited to see this yellow highlight show up!

[KristinL]

We are currently in the middle of our fall conferences, and we are pleased with the number of families have set up (and use!) their observation accounts. However, several parents have asked for ways to make their observation role easier to navigate, and with this yellow banner on top of this feature idea, I can now simply say "Canvas has something in the works." Awesome.

[debbie2]

So glad to see this coming to fruition! Many parents/teachers w/kids in our district have asked me about this very topic and I too am happy to say that Canvas is working on it. Thanks for listening Canvas!