The Pros And Cons Of Nails To A Blackboard

Jaime Condori
Ms. Gonda
English 1551 10am
10 September 2012 `
Nails to a Blackboard On my Youngstown State ID user page there is a program for students to receive things from the instructors, whether it’s a syllabus or assignments, all these things are on a program known as Blackboard. Not all teachers use it, but since I’ve started I’ve had just over half a dozen instructors use Blackboard, and this semester more teachers are using it than ever. As of December 2010, Blackboard software and services are used by over 9,300 institutions in more than sixty countries. Although there are many people who do put their assignments and other essentials up on blackboard, there are too many flaws and far better alternatives than this program.
Why is the design complicated if it was made for college students to navigate through? Starting out as a freshman, getting use to Blackboard will need to have a learning curve. Navigating through blackboard is tedious and needlessly time consuming. Don’t get this wrong, everything is there but it’s not always organized in a fashion that everything is easy to find. Also, it should be mentioned that Blackboard has the tendency to not work if there is a decent amount of people logged on all at once. This really isn’t a problem until it’s put into consideration that the amount of people who use Blackboard at the same time are usually around finals and mid-terms. This is a program used by so many instructors and students that it is truly unacceptable for something like this to
They do the exact same thing with a cleaner, easier to learn format also they are much faster than Blackboard. After signing in with Canvas I immediately saw a difference it was nice and organized, there wasn’t a stack of boxes like in Blackboard, it was user friendly and easy to navigate through. It looks like a night and day comparison. Instead of everything cramming itself into one page like sardines, Canvas had things spaced out and in larger text. There should be a reason why people shouldn’t be using a better alternative when it’s easier to use, more user friendly to instructors as well as students and not to mention that it’s free so the campus doesn’t go out of its way to spend money. If small improvements can be done then a lot of needed points will be saved, a great deal of stress will be lifted and a good amount of frustration would go down. If instructors are going to have a place to put their assignments, it should be a place that doesn’t give students a hindering experience from learning and this may be a small but also important solution.