Matthew Will
Editor-in-Chief
As a fifth-semester student at Butler Community College, I have had my fair share of instructors and curriculum. Like any good student, I’ve struggled through math and survived history classes. Through all these classes, one awful thing has stood out: Canvas is a good service and does its job well. So why do we need McGraw Hill Connect, Hawkes and Cengage Unlimited?
I’ll begin with McGraw Hill’s Connect. While the service does a nice job of providing online text as well as a platform for online tests, quizzes and assignments, the service costs more than a typical class because the access codes are more expensive than a standard book. By using this service, instructors can run quizzes through it. This makes their jobs a bit easier, but it is just another service for students to keep track of.
Next, the math apocalypse that is Hawkes. While the service is a nice platform for applying the math you’ve learned, it does not work well with showing work done and getting credit for that work.
As for Cengage Unlimited, this service has potential. The ‘Unlimited’ option gives students access to hundreds of online textbooks for the 4-month base subscription. This could help students who cannot afford all their book and can find them for a cheaper combined price on this platform. With the assignments on this service, quite often the submit assignment buttons disappear. This makes it impossible to turn in assignments.
One of the nice things about Canvas is it tracks every deadline and assignment teachers have put in so you can have a nice list of them. When using another source like Connect, Unlimited or Hawkes, many of those deadlines do not appear on Canvas, making it hard for students with 5-7 classes to stay on top of the schedules.
The reason these services upset me so much is the difficulty in which they add to staying on top of homework. Having all the work in one place is good and makes our lives as students easier. They have disappearing submit buttons, confusing home pages and difficulty in seeing deadlines. Canvas has a great setup for quizzes and assignment turn-in. Let’s let good enough be good enough and stick with Canvas. The students will thank you.
