The problem: Canvas misleads students and instructors with the language that an item in a module "...hasn't been unlocked yet" causing lots of wasted communication between them and in Canvas forums.  The language implies that the instructor must "unlock" the item.  As a result, many instructors have asked in the Canvas forum how to "unlock" an item for students because many students have written to them asking them to "unlock" an item. This happens frequently in my courses.  Eventually the instructors and students realize that nothing is actually locked and there is nothing for the instructor to do.  Rather, the instructor has set up sequential perquisites and the student simply has not worked through the prerequisites and is trying to jump ahead.  The cause of the problem of wasted communication, therefore, is the language Canvas uses when informing students that an item is not available because that language misleads everyone.  In fact, the item will never actually be "unlocked" by the instructor, but rather it will remain "unavailable" to student until the student completes the prerequisites.

The solution is to use different language.  

Replace
"This assignment is part of the module x and hasn't been unlocked yet" and "The following requirements need to be completed before this page will be unlocked" 

With
"This assignment is part of the module x and is not available yet" and "The following requirements need to be completed before this page will become available"