Threaded Discussions advice

grahamcharles
Community Member

So, Canvas discussions are a train wreck. 

  • There's no message list view. 
  • There no inbox.
  • There's no usable threading. I mean, there "sort of" is, in that you can reply to discussions in a threaded way, but you can't collapse or expand those threads.
  • The interface is nearly unusable. What is the "Mark as Read" button -- four pixels across? And frequently actually reading the message doesn't mark it as read, and sometimes it does.
  • There's no "subscribe to replies" metaphor -- or if there is, it appears that instructors can turn it off.
  • It appears that instructors also have the power to turn off the Discussions tab.

What a slog. Every time I go to a Canvas class as a student, I have to hunt through every module (which, for some reason, still shows the completed modules on the top -- very unhelpful) to find the discussion thread I need, then filter for Unread messages, then click on each reply and click again to view it in the context of the discussion, then review all the parent messages to the reply.

I'm new to Canvas, so I'm willing to accept that some of this might be my misunderstanding the interface. I really, really hope that's true. 

Please -- tell me what I'm doing wrong.

 

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