Being told I don't qualify for Free for Teacher

@MaryMiddlebrook

Following up on our internal discussion regarding your account. Free for Teacher was created to support individual educators in traditional elementary, secondary, and postsecondary institutions. Over time we’ve seen organizations outside of traditional education institutions using Free for Teacher beyond its originally intended use case. For-profit businesses, non-profit organizations, government entities, and partner organizations do not qualify for Free For Teacher. I’m truly sorry I couldn’t bring better news on that front. Amy and Richard continue to be available to support as helpful.

All comments

NoahBoswell

@MaryMiddlebrook ,

I wanted to let you know that I have forwarded this to someone. Your patience is appreciated, even though I know it's hard in this situation.

I just spoke with Amy. She says that since I don't have an .edu address, that I must teach for an accredited school. This was never a requirement before, and has created quite a mess. There must be some way to fix this, at least until the end of the school year in June.

@MaryMiddlebrook thank you for posting your question. I'm doing some inquiry internally.

@MaryMiddlebrook

Intention and your terms and conditions are apparently 2 different things. Nothing in the terms states that- 10 years ago or now. I think the only intention here is to put independent educators over a barrel during the middle of the school year, with less than 30 days notice, so your new private equity owners can squeeze us for $$$ or squeeze us out. Thanks for following up.

rpsimon

What is Canvas Career and what is the charge for that? Is that also $5K?

duplicate comment

I'm looking into better alternatives for my school, and am happy to discuss my findings with a fellow independent educator! You can email me at maryhmtw (at) gmail.com

E_Hartley1706

@Renee Carney Are FFT accounts able to transition to paid accounts? We are unable to find any support on this topic.

They can. I was quoted a bare minimum of $7300 to start. The way my school works, it will probably end up being around $10,000 a year at least. I'm looking into other alternatives. Feel free to email me at maryhmtw (at) gmail.com if you'd like to chat.

Chris

Hi @rpsimon,

Information about Canvas Career can be found at Canvas Career | Skills-First AI Learning for Workforce Training. I have no idea what the pricing is, but I'd always recommending talking with an Instructure salesperson about cost, since there are usually a lot of variables involved that could change things significantly.

-Chris

@E_Hartley1706 & @rpsimon
Thank you both for adding your inquiries. You should hear from a contact within Instructure soon to talk through your use case.
You can also use the "let's connect" button on https://www.instructure.com/ to initiate a conversation as well.

@MaryMiddlebrook - I am also in the same boat (using FFT for 10+ years), but was given until June to figure out an alternative. I looked into Canvas Career and it raises so many red flags, one of the biggest being it's HEAVY integration of AI. We don't need AI to create a course, we don't need AI to write emails, we don't want our learners relying on AI for more information about a topic.

The rollout of this new platform seems incredibly rushed. There's barely any information about it on the information page and it's full of jargon to explain new features. Not only that, but the same jargon is repeated over and over again without really explaining anything. In the informational video, the text flies on and off screen so fast you can't read it and when you go through it slowly, sometimes the screen it shows and the text on screen don't match up (ex. they show the data/insights screen with info on whether students have started the course or not, but the text says "track skill development" - and the skill dev't screen is shown somewhere else, which makes the mismatch more obvious).

I get the impression that with the administration's outrageous funding cuts to non-profits and educational orgs, Canvas has seen more people move to FFT and as a for-profit company, they feel the need to squeeze more money out of people/orgs that don't have any (we already saw it with Canvas Credentials/Badges). I get that they can't just give things out for free, but when their alternative is AI slop that seems to have been developed and packaged on the fly, it feels like they aren't in this for the education.

And for me personally, it's also a red flag when they say FFT "was created to support individual educators in traditional elementary, secondary, and postsecondary institutions" meaning anything non-traditional is not as important. I have loved Canvas for many years, but I've just become more and more disappointed.

I'm honestly surprised that Renee did an "internal inquiry" and came back to you with the exact same wording that is in the email we all received telling us we can't have a free account anymore.

https://community.instructure.com/en/discussion/comment/1253710#Comment_1253710

I'd also like to put this here:

I'm not saying anything negative about Noah - he's great and has been so helpful in this community. What I'm trying to say is that something must have happened in the past two months to change Instructure's mind about who can use FFT. And it's even more insulting when the email they send out low-key accuses us of "misusing" FFT ("Over time we’ve seen organizations outside of traditional education institutions using Free for Teacher beyond its originally intended use case.) when in reality, they've just changed their mind.

Greetings @ginahyena1
I realize this feels like a significant shift. You aren’t wrong - over the last few months, we’ve conducted an audit of our Free For Teacher users to ensure the platform is still serving its original mission.

While hosting these accounts comes with a cost, our priority has always been supporting educators who lack access to an LMS. However, the audit revealed that many businesses were using the tool, which drove up costs and necessitated a "reset." We are refocusing our resources to ensure the platform remains available for the teachers who need it most.

Our team is available for conversations if you believe you fit under the original mission.

It doesn't feel like a significant shift, it IS a significant shift, which will leave many educators without access to an LMS and courses that they've built over many years. "Educators" is a pretty broad category and many schools, non-profits, hospitals, and even businesses employ "educators." Your "reset" is likely wiping hundreds of legitimate educators (who "need it most") from the platform just because they don't have a .edu email address. The email that Instructure sent out completely devalues non-traditional education (which I would argue includes online education) and it's insulting because it insinuates that we have been "misusing" Canvas, even though up to two months ago, Instructure employees/contractors were saying it's free for anyone that wants to build a course.

I do think my non-profit education organization should qualify - many other platforms have free versions for educators and include non-profits (Google for Education, Slack, Moodle, etc.). And you all never seem to define what "original mission" or "it's original intended use" actually is. I think the original mission was meant to make education accessible, which included non-traditional education and educators not affiliated with institutions. From your own website: "Canvas Free-for-Teacher is built for the curious, independent, and passionate educators." To me, "independent" doesn't mean affiliation with an institution and a .edu email address.

So, again, while I do feel that we qualify for FFT under the original mission, I am not interested in bargaining and leaving other educators who are truly independent or part of an organization that truly cannot pay out in the cold. Plus, with the painful funding cuts, we wouldn't even be able to afford it. I will likely be suggesting to my organization that we transition to another LMS.

You're wasting your time trying to reason with these people. They literally do not care. That was proven when they gave me less than 30 days notice of this change and told me I would lose access in the middle of a school year. This is not about education. This is not about any "original intent" or "original mission". The private equity firm that owns Instructure now doesn't even know what the original intent of anything was. They weren't here. The employees are just regurgitating the required corporate-speak to make it sound different than what it really is…Instructure was purchased by private equity who is prioritizing money. There's nothing wrong with that, that's what private equity does. But it would be nice if they would just be honest about that rather than implying that teachers who have been on the platform for 10 years were somehow getting around the rules and were "caught" during an audit. We weren't. These are NEW rules. Actually they are forced suggestions. The terms and conditions and sign up forms for FFT as of today still say absolutely NOTHING about being required to have a .edu or be a teacher with an accredited school. Nothing. Which shows me that this truly is just a money grab, where they bend us all over a barrel in the middle of the school year forcing us to pay thousands or scramble to move our students to a new platform with only 2 months left in a school year. If they cared about teachers and cared about education, they would have made this announcement, said that no new classes can be created on FFT, let us finish out the school year with a reasonable deadline, and not force us into hurried financial decisions. I would have respected that and most likely continued with them on a paid plan. But they only care about money, so this is the roll out we get. Honesty and transparency goes a LONG way- especially when you're asking for thousands of dollars a year from businesses. And I have seen neither of those things from Instructure.

I've researched new platforms and am happy to share my findings. Feel free to email me at maryhmtw @ gmail. com

@ginahyena1 I do encourage you to reach out to the contact in the email. The discussions aren't about providing one educator something another is not eligible for - in fact I have seen exceptions approved for numerous individuals that do not have an edu email and align with the mission.

rpsimon

I do consulting for EdTech outside of my regular job. I have been working with a client who has used the FFT account for the past 5+ years since COVID. Assuming he is going to stick with Canvas, once he exports his course data via the Export tool, will he be able to keep the student data concerning students who were enrolled in his FFT course? This data is included in the Settings → Students section. It also can be viewed in People page. He is wanting to take previous student data with him. Anyone know?

Urge your client to get off of this platform. There are better alternatives. I changed to a different platform and was able to move my classes and my student data- and Instructure no longer has control over my business. Based on the way they handled this change, I can not trust them with my business moving forward.

@rpsimon we're working on getting an answer to your question.