Communication

Communication is much more important to student success in online classes. It is needed to break the isolation sometimes felt by students and to bridge the differences in background (which can be greater in online classes).

There are two main types of online communication:

Type	Examples	Pros	Cons
Synchronous (live)	chat, virtual classroom, office hours	more immediate better sense of community	difficult to manage with many students (see the sidebar in Using Groups for advice) distracting hard to censor difficult to grade
Asynchronous (posted)	email, messaging, discussions, announcements	more flexible for student schedules convenient better quality interaction since there is no rush	excessive or rude emails (see Problem Students for advice here) instant reply expectation (see Workload for advice)

Announcements:

Community building
Should be updated at least once a week
Include: reminders of assignment due dates, comments on class progress, add interesting new information (news links, articles)

Discussions: see Handling Discussions

Surveys:

Can also give a sense of community and encourage more student-student interaction.
Results can be used in discussions.
Some give a survey at the start of the class that describes the course demographics and students expectations and attitude about the class.

Personal teacher-student and student-student contact:

Type	Pros	Cons
Email	can send emails to student's preferred external email address	when you add students, their default email address may be incorrect or one that they do not use regularly (you MUST have them immediately check their email address in WebAdvisor) emails can get "lost" hard to track tons of emails from many sources in your inbox (consider setting up a separate gmail accounts for each class see "forwarding email") can be blocked by spam filters
Inbox Messages	Inbox messages are sent through email	there is a record of all interactions in a course
Written Work Feedback	entered in assignment "Comments" besides assignment discussion, these can include personal issues as a better substitute for email	students need to be made aware to check this (in "Grades") see Providing Feedback in Your Distance Learning Course

Email Advice:

Be sure that students have their correct email listed in WebAdvisor or you will not be able to contact them. Any changes made to email addresses in WebAdvisor will be transferred to Canvas within 24 hours.
Besides a welcome email (see Orientation), you might also include and end-of-course goodbye email including their final grade.
Be sure to save all emails and messages to and from students throughout a semester in case of disputes.