DOCUMENT by: ESC Training
Subject: Areas Where You Can Communicate with Your Students

Maintaining regular and consistent communication with students is a critical part of online instruction. Through these communications you maintain the three types of actions that have been demonstrated to be related to successful online learning: social presence, teaching presence and cognitive presence (also see the research publications on online learning from Athabasca University). This section tells you about the types of communication that happen in the peripheral areas of your course. The next section of this module is devoted to managing the Discussion Areas of your course.

NOTE: whenever communicating or typing more than a sentence or two of text into your course, it is highly recommended that you get in the habit of composing and spell-checking your text offline on your own word processor and then using the copy-paste or attach functions to place that text or document into the course so your students can see it. This will also prevent lost work if you experience Internet connection problems in the middle of typing something.

Here is a summary of the communications areas:

Newsflash:
displays above the Class Community area on the Course Map. It is a place to post brief, regular announcements to your students. Use the Edit Course Map Adjuster link to access and edit the Newsflash area.

Class Community

Meet Your Classmates: area where students and instructors can introduce themselves to each other and learn about their classmates. The list of students in this section also serves as an up-to-date class roster.

Bulletin Board: public area where course participants may hold informal discussions. Students can submit and respond to issues and each other's postings. Issues that are discussed need not pertain to academic topics. In a traditional face-to-face course, students can hold conversations before and after class. The Bulletin Board can meet the social need that students have to interact with each other. Professors may also choose to provide information to students in that area. Another use of the bulletin board is to keep archived copies of old Newsflash items, so that a student who is offline for more than a week can access the announcements they may have missed.

Shared References: optional area that allows students and the instructor to create a shared bibliography. Shared reference postings may include web resources with active links, journal articles or other media.

Private Folder: area where each student can communicate privately with the professor. Each student has a Private Folder that is automatically created for them when they edit (add text to ) their Meet Your Classmates profile. The Private Folder eliminates the need to use email to communicate privately. It also allows for all communication pertaining to the course to be archived along with the course.

Learning Modules

Discussion Area: primary discussions for most Empire State College courses will appear in a Discussion Area section in each module. The discussion area generally has one or more carefully thought out discussion questions related to the course objectives. Often, student participation in this area is evaluated. The next section of this module is devoted to managing the discussion area.

Question Area: public area that appears at the bottom of each learning module. Postings are created anytime a student uses the Ask a Question link located in the lower right of each document. Both the instructor and other students can respond to postings in this area. You will find that many students are willing to assist their classmates by posting responses even before you have seen the original question.

Talk with the Professor: an optional public area where you may ask students questions or have the students ask you questions. Most Empire State College courses do not use this area at all.


If you have any questions about this material, please click on the ASK A QUESTION link below. Now go to the next document to continue this module.