Student Aliases

[besecksw]

I have been middle school Instructional Technology Coach for 19 years. I'd like to suggest that Canvas have the option to automatically assign aliases to students. When students have aliases they tend to contribute more to class discussions. When they are identifiable by other students, they tend to shut down, not wanting to be teased or cajoled for their opinions or responses. Another LMS used to do this - School Fusion, which was purchased (sucked up) by Blackboard a few years ago. Our students really loved it and their participation was far greater, with more in-depth, honest posts when aliases were assigned. These aliases were known only by the individual and the teacher. Next to the alias, the teacher would see the student's real name). Other students only saw the alias. The aliases were color-coded animals and students were assigned one automatically; however, they had the option to change the alias before their first post. Once they posted, they were stuck with that name for the life of the product (every grade they were enrolled).  Names were simple, like Blue Cobra, Ochre Kangaroo. With so many K-12 schools using Canvas, this feature would be a real boon to getting students to be more honest in their posts knowing they will not be flayed by other students for what they write.

[Stef_retired]

Comments from Instructure

As part of the new Ideas & Themes process, all ideas in Idea Conversations were reviewed by the Product Team. Any Idea that was associated with an identified theme was moved to the new Idea & Themes space. Any Idea that was not part of the move is being marked as Archived. This will preserve the history of the conversations while also letting Community members know that Instructure will not explore the request at this time.