Tag Archives: communication

Using Announcements to Communicate With Your Students

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In this episode, Agent L aids faculty to outsmart Gremlins in the System (aka GITS) and get students to their first day of class.

ben fridayBen Friday: Agent L, you have a new mission. GITS have struck again. They have managed to rearrange all the room scheduling. Classes start next week and the faculty are in a bit of a pickle. They need to contact their students as soon as possible with the new room locations. How will you handle this? Will you go undercover as a GITS agent? Maybe reprogram their systems? What about…?agent L

Agent L: Wait… Ben, have you heard of Announcements?

Ben Friday: Announcements? What’s that? Some new fiendish plot from GITS?

Agent L: Announcements is a tool in myLesley. Faculty can easily send out timely information to their students whenever they need to. Simply log into your myLesley course and click the Create Announcement button.
create announcement

 

 

Type in a Subject for your Announcement and the Message.
create an announcement

Ben Friday: But what if the students don’t log into the course site between now and class time?

Agent L: Announcements can be emailed to them. The instructors don’t even need to know the students’ email addresses. Just scroll below the Message area to the Web Announcement Options section and check the Email Announcement box.
email announcement

Click Submit and every member of the course will now have a copy in their inbox.

Ben Friday: That’s brilliant Agent L. I’ll spread the word.

Agent L: Maybe via an Announcement (smirk).

Check back for Agent L’s next exciting mission. For more information on how to use Announcements, see the instructions on the Agent Support site or view the video below.

Blackboard IM: A Brief Survey of One Lesley Professor’s Experience

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BBIM

Dr. Paul Naso, an assistant professor in the PhD in Educational Studies Program at Lesley GSOE, has adopted Blackboard Instant Messaging for a variety of communication tasks.  Below is a list of some small steps he and his students have taken during recent semesters:

In his online course Critical Contexts for the Principalship:

  • Office hours, by appointment meetings, and occasional unscheduled meetings with students
  • Use of audio, video and text message functionality
  • All students were Bb IM users and approximately 75% of students used Bb IM frequently for within-cohort interactions, in pairs or small groups

As part of the online component of Adult Learning and Development Semester IV:

  • Office hours, by appointment text chat
  • Audio chat with students to get individual feedback on plans for how they would approach their assignments

In the Educational Leadership PhD specialization:

  • Unscheduled, student-initiated text chats to
    • Check-in about program requirements, program schedules
    • Request suggestions for research topic literature
    • Schedule appointments

Through his use of Blackboard IM so far, Paul has observed that as the numbers of his students using the tool increases, the more uses for it become evident.

If you would like to learn more about Blackboard IM please review the help documentation on the eLIS website.