About communication

Good communication is an integral part of digital learning, where we lose a lot of verbal and visual cues. A lot of context can be lost when communicating online so Brightspace offers multiple channels where you can talk to your students and facilitate clearer information. Before we share guides, here are a few reminders:

1. Clarify your intention. When crafting a message, make sure your purpose is clear. Are you explaining an idea? Encouraging participation or providing critical feedback? Are you checking-in with their wellbeing? Communicating online is more difficult because of the lack of physical presence. Make sure your intention is clearly expressed.

2. Meet them where they are. Conversational and personalized communication is proven to be more effective rather than dry and formal messages. When students are reading your messages or instructions, put your personality in the text. Make them hear you as they are reading it.

3. Be consistent. Set common times, routines, and platforms for your announcements and other forms of communication. When should they expect feedback on their assignments? Where should they check for your urgent announcements?

4. Keep it simple and digestible. As much as possible, make your messages short and concise. Balance personalization with the essential content. Use visuals (such as graphics, emojis, charts) if necessary.

Sending an e-mail to the entire classlist

Sending announcements to your Classlist is easy! You can compare it to sending a message to your email list in GMail. The enrolled students in your Course are collected in a Classlist and in a simple way, you can send a single message to everyone in it.

Your Classlist is unique for every Course that you are managing. Before sending an email, make sure that you are accessing the correct Course.

1. From the course navigation bar, click the Classlist.

2. From the Classlist page, click the top left box. This will Select All the students in your Classlist enrolled in that course.

3. Click Email.

4. Compose your email to the class. You can now create an email in a similar way with how you create emails in GMail.

5. Click Send when you are ready.

Sending instant messages to users in Brightspace

You can send a message to a specific student enrolled in your Course in your Classlist.

1. From the course navigation bar, click the Classlist.

2. From the Classlist page, search for the student you want to send an instant message to. There is a search bar.

3. Click the box at the left of the image of the student.

4. Click Instant message. You can now compose your message.

5. Click Send