![\"resubmit\"](\"https:\/\/lisahistoryblog.files.wordpress.com\/2017\/09\/resubmit.png?resize=648%2C256\")
<\/p>\nI know I complain a lot about Canvas, but I do assume that their discussion boards, however limited, will act like discussion boards.<\/p>\n
So I set them up for students to post their primary source each week. These are due Wednesday midnight, so that\u2019s the \u201cdue date\u201d I set. On Thursday I grade them in Speedgrader, using a rubric. That\u2019s the end of the assignment.<\/p>\n
I just discovered, because a student sent me a screenshot, that when they go back to their post, it shows a large green \u201cRe-submit Assignment\u201d button.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Apparently that appears because the forum is still available. The due date doesn\u2019t matter – if the discussion can be seen (is available) the green button\u00a0implies that you can re-submit your post before that \u201cclose\u201d date.<\/p>\n
But in my class, you can\u2019t, and I can’t set a close date, because these same boards are used throughout the course to post additional<\/em>, ungraded primary sources for writing. The discussion is actually a collection of primary sources – it\u2019s just that only the first one is graded. I do NOT come back and regrade every weekly board throughout the whole semester.<\/p>\n But the green button implies that I do, that they can just re-submit. And when they do this, it makes it so they cannot see their original submission. The whole idea is so they can see everyone\u2019s, the whole collection.<\/p>\n So the fact that Canvas lets me grade forum posts, which used to seem a boon, is a nasty trap. It considers such posts \u201cassignments\u201d. In classes which actually<\/em> have a discussion<\/em> instead of posting boards, the button implies that you can take back what you\u2019ve said, and say something else, even after it\u2019s been graded. It also implies that everything you say is a \u201csubmission\u201d, an \u201cassignment\u201d, rather than a contribution to a conversation. I grade the student\u2019s entire contribution<\/em> to a discussion, not individual posts. I wanted<\/em> to grade posts, but Canvas wouldn\u2019t let me, so I designed discussion around the technology. And now the technology undermines that by emphasizing grades over conversation.<\/p>\n