As a student who was absent recently, I had to go online to access what my peers were doing in class. Three out of my five classes have a perfectly functional Canvas page, another one works some of the time, and one only has the online textbook. Classes without fancy agendas make it incredibly difficult for me to understand the curriculum of the class and make it harder for me to get the homework from the day I was gone. 

   My three classes with the perfect Canvas pages are structured like this: the day and date, anything done in class that day with hyperlinks to any slideshows for notes or instructions for projects, and the homework and when it is due. Even when I am not absent, it is important to access any part of the notes that I missed or even to go back and study information for a test. 

   On the somewhat functioning Canvas class everything is listed on the agenda, but the links may not always work or there could be inaccurate information such as something being done in class that was not actually done that day. 

   Then, there are the dysfunctional Canvas pages. The modules have not been updated recently, there is no accurate information ever, and links do not work. In the case of my class, modules do not exist. There is no agenda of the things my classmates did or what the homework is. 

   Because there are no modules or any sort of agenda, I can not understand any of the curriculum learned in class. I have to ask my friends for the notes and what was assigned for homework. It is really unfortunate. I do not want to have to jump over hurdles to be able to figure out when my peers did in class when I could easily have it at the click of a button.

   Some teachers say they are  trying to step away from using technology like Canvas, and that putting together a useful agenda there would be too time consuming. Over quarantine in 2020, teachers had beautiful Canvas pages that were like the functional ones mentioned before. When my peers came back into school full time for the 2021-2022 school year, my classmates had to plead with her to have the online textbook on Canvas. 

   A week or so ago, the annual conversation came up when I returned to school from home with a cold. She gave the usual reasons, which angered me. It is the responsibility of the teacher to provide all the necessary materials needed to ensure that students will have the best results from their time at school. I appreciate the time that teachers with professional, put together modules for their students so that they can benefit from the resources they are being given. 

   I want to be helped by my teachers, not have them doing a disservice to my academic success. It is more of a “need” than a “want”, honestly.