Tena Crews

Michael,

Ah - good point. I never thought about it as marketing, but you're right. Thanks!

Dr. Tena Crews

Michael Mattingly CHEP

Absolutely. It's like marketing your deadlines. Communicate in various forms of mediums and you should have a higher rate of student awareness.

Tena Crews

Lia,

It is true. So many times when students get lost they never quite catch up again. So, we have to communicate over and over again from the beginning.

Thanks!

Lia Safalow

I agree! Once communication stops, the student gets lost and it becomes that much harder to bring them back!

Jennifer Chagala

Hi Cindy,

These are great ways to communicate with students. I often find that I will send the same message to students in multiple formats--that way, hopefully all the students will see it somewhere. For example, if I have important instructions about how to do a particular assignment, I might post the instructions as an announcement, send it as an email, post it in the discussion, and post it in each student's journal. I find this especially handy when reminding students about deadlines for final projects.

The more we communicate, the better.

Tena Crews

Cindy,

Thanks for your input on this forum. You are exactly right about the "leading the horse to water." It's important to establish communication with students and giving them your expectations for what technology you expect them to use. Set guidelines for them to help keep the communication going.

Nice job.

Matthew Willard

i think this is absolutely right. And the biggest challenge in an all on line class...how do you have live chats where are the students can attend for example. I tend to use a combination of live chats, podcasts, email, blog, etc. to try and setup a communication intensive environment.

Robert Touro

Cindy,

Our University avails all of the modes of communication you identified as well as we have "instant messaging" wherein a student can see if others in their class are online as well as the instructor. They can IM any one of their classmates and/or the instructor adding another "real time" communication conduit.

The issue that arises which rarely has a good answer, to use the old axiom; "you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink."

Thus while our University has a myriad offering of communication technologies to enhance learning and communication, the student has to be willing to use it. Some do, a great majority do not and it is the latter group that is at the greatest risk of failure. It seems that no matter how hard we try, suggest and cajole, that some never bother to communicate because they either have no interest/time or it is not a priority for them.

Tena Crews

Cindy,

In any environment, but especially the online environment, communication is key. The connection you are describing between the student and instructor is crucial and the students need to feel a part of the community.

Synchronous and asynchronous technology assist in this connection. Keep communicating!

Thanks!