Key points
Establish mechanisms for frequent, timely and easy communication
Use a variety of communication media and tools
Enlist course TAs for implementation
In a online course, students may have questions about the content, posted materials, platform, course policies and a variety of other issues. Responding to questions in a timely manner is particularly important in an online course, in the absence of which students might feel isolated. It's equally important to make it easy for students to post questions and voice concerns.
Similarly, it's important to provide regular announcements about upcoming topics and recap, assignments, class procedures, schedule and so on, so that students receive sufficient guidance even when they are not physically present.
There are multiple strategies that instructors can use:
Discussion forums. This is one of the most common tool in an online course. It is useful for multiple purposes, including sharing experiences, peer learning and promoting discussions.
Repurpose everyday communication tools. Use WhatsApp groups or other social media (if comfortable), or plain old email.
Hold weekly office hours. These can be include live video interactions using tools such as Google Hangouts or Facebook Live.
Let the team help! Ask course TAs to monitor and address questions on a regular basis, for example, post on discussion forum once a day.
Below are links to some commonly used tools for communicating with students.
Learning Management Systems contain built-in discussion forums. The documentation above describes how to use a discussion forum in Moodle.
Google Groups allows the creation of online forums which can be used for course discussion. The documentation above describes how to create a discussion forum in Google Groups.
Piazza is an wikki style online collaboration platform where users can gather, share and respond to queries. The documentation above describes how to use a piazza in various ways for an online discussion
Have you used anything other than email or Moodle forum to communicate with your students? How has that worked? Post your experience in the Discussion Forum. Creative ideas welcome!