Communication

Here are methods by which you can communicate with students via the internet. These become especially crucial when the classroom and paper handouts are no longer available.

Using Groups

D2L allows you to organize your students into groups. Once done, you are able to filter the classlist and gradebook by different groups, making communication and grading more efficient.

Plus, you can use Release Conditions to make parts of course content and various activities available to some students, but not others. For example, if you need to provide alternative assignments or asynchronous discussions for students who cannot attend your on-campus classes, this is an efficient way to do it.

Create Groups Within a D2L Course Space

Create a Single-Topic Small Group Discussion

Use Groups to Limit Access to Topics in Content

...and share this video with students, to help them identify their group: https://youtu.be/yXfmZBXzSkc

Email

Email is a basic means for communication, including in courses. But professors often find that, outside of predictable or routine class-wide broadcasts and messages to or from single students, it is troublesome. Both you and your students receive many emails each day and they are frequently lost in cluttered inboxes. Instead, consider D2L your core toolset for course content, assignments, and learning interaction between course members.

Efficiently email your class using D2L or Exchange Faculty Email Accounts.

News Feed in D2L

Every course in D2L has a News Feed. This can be more efficient for you and students than relying on email.

Use the D2L News Feed for announcements.

Asynchronous Discussions in D2L

For many disciplines, message boards (Asynchronous Discussions) in D2L can be a quick way to move interaction online. Students can discuss something without specific dates and times that may no longer be practical. (And you may find quiet students in your face-to-face class have more to say in text discussion!)

- Quick Start: Basics of Creating a Discussion Topic in Content - Transcript
- Organization and Management of Discussions in the Discussions Area - Transcript
- Building Discussion Forums and Topics in the Discussions Area - Transcript
- Creating Threads and Replies in Discussion Topics - Transcript
- Subscribe to Receive Email Notifications When a Class Member Contributes to a Discussion
- COLI's Pedagogy Primer Podcast has two episodes dedicated to creative and efficient use of Asynchronous/Message Board Discussions
- Spend time on building great discussion prompts based on the substance of your course. Meanwhile, COLI can supply some boilerplate guidelines for good discussions, so you don't have to write these yourself. Use and modify them as you need to.

See the full list of D2L video tutorials for more on D2L Discussions.

There are many variations on prompts and organization schemes for asynchronous discussions.

Alternatives to Discussion Boards

Asynchronous discussions are often a default method in online education. They can be quite good in many courses. For others, however, different kinds of student-student interaction may work better. You can achieve social learning and teaching presence in your courses with a variety of other tools. Any of these methods may better serve your learning objectives, provide students with creative opportunities, and foster a sense of community within your courses.

Discover Alternatives to Asynchronous Discussion, with resources provided by Dr. Marya Grande.

You can have two social annotation systems installed in your D2L Course Space. Contact coli@canisius.edu to have them installed.

Perusall, which allows students to collaboratively annotate PDF file-based texts and video. (Website)
Hypothes.is, which allows students to collaborative annotate almost any website or web-page, include PDF file-based texts. (Website)

You can experiment with either tool on your own, outside D2L. Hypothes.is has a robust YouTube channel with lots of resources.

Chat!

D2L has a simple chat system that allows realtime text communication among class members. It's easy to install and quick for your students to learn. It's perfect when you want to discuss something at a real-time pace but video web conference is more than what's needed.

How to Use D2L Chat

Quick Video

Short videos, even just screencasts where students hear your voice, can reassure them them that you are engaged in their learning, despite circumstances.

Record Screencast Videos for your students.

Record Webcam Videos to Communicate with Students - Transcript Short webcam videos can be great for quick announcements, short concepts, and in general reminding your students that you are engaged in course, despite circumstances.

For a more extensive videomaking resources, (for lecture, procedural, and other teaching videos) see the Course Content page.

Web Conferencing, Web Meeting, Live-Remote

Before attempting to use Zoom or other web conferencing technology to teach, it is strongly recommended you review considerations listed in the COLI Guide to Teaching Online.

During the COVID-19 Crisis, here are some additional considerations:

When you do need to have interactive, live, or timed activities these should take place during the original scheduled class meeting time (e.g. 9:05-10:00 am MWF).
If an alternate time needs to be scheduled for an individual student, please ensure that this does not conflict with an existing scheduled event from another class.
When posting any sort of time of day that your students must be aware of, such as the scheduled time for a synchronous class meeting, remember to include "Eastern Standard Time" or "EST." Some of your students are now living in other time zones, so this helps them keep track of important times.
Zoom allows recordings of meetings. If you record to your local hard drive, your options for what's on screen are limited, and you should have a relatively fast (new) computer with a good internet connection. If you record to Zoom's cloud, your video will be there for 30 days, after which it is deleted. So make a habit of downloading and saving your Zoom recordings. Google Drive is an excellent place to store and share videos.

Zoom Tutorials

You can find basic instructions, including how to request a pro account, at our Zoom Resource. This also has links to Zoom's support site, which has fairly good instructions for all aspects of Zoom for web meetings.

Scheduling With Students

You can Efficiently schedule meetings with students (ex. office hours or advising) using Google Calendar. Additionally, you can

add a Google Calendar to your faculty Outlook calendar via Desktop Outlook
Use the Zoom Browser Plugin so you can easily add Zoom meetings to Google Calendar events.

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