Aram SinnreichHive mind:
I would like to conduct my class discussions this semester on non-surveillant, non-AI-saturated platform, instead of Canvas, which is the default at my university.
What should I use? Accessibility and ease of use are big must-haves.
Tiffany Li@aram I would also like to know, although the thought of learning a new platform and migrating all my materials is daunting
Charlotte Aten@aram I've been thinking about this too. The AI stuff was the last straw for me. I don't run discussions on the platform, so I may switch to a static site plus some small self-hosted tool for checking grades. A FOSS self-hosted LMS would be awesome though.
Liam O'Connor@aram depends a lot on the class, but perhaps Zulip can work. You can mark questions as resolved and so on.
Falling forward 🍉@aram
I've heard of this, but haven't used it yet
https://openslides.com/en/welcome/
Abe@aram I use Zulip!
🇨🇦 Joey Eremondi@aram I personally like Moodle, but get the impression that's not a widely held opinion?
Oros@aram https://meet.no42.org/ maybe?
Alex Rodríguez@aram I've used Basecamp (free for classroom use) and thought it worked great although had to spend class time to get students used to it
Juggling Jester@aram Maybe https://opentalk.eu/en/education is worth a look?
RRB
Auntie Mame@aram If Canvas is the standard, keep that. Don’t hit students with yet ANOTHER thing to check somewhere else.
JustAskRan@aram Check for platforms that don't rely heavily on custom UI components — especially ones built with accessible HTML by default. Static forums (like Flarum or Discourse) tend to be more accessible than modern JavaScript-heavy discussion tools. And whatever you pick, please include alt text guidance and accessible discussion prompts as those can make or break the experience for many students.
Stefan Monnier@aram Has someone tried to use a Discourse or Lemmy server for that?
rsp@aram WTF? There's AI in Canvas? Me looking into this.....yes, f***, there's AI in Canvas. Calling finanIcial advisor tomorrow to see how soon I can retire.
The question is, has our university administration enabled that feature? Hopefully it costs extra--they probably won't if it costs extra.
At least, for now, it appears to be something that instructors can elect to activate or not.