Course Communication Tools

Video Overview

There are several options for communicating with students in Canvas. This page gives a brief overview of the options.

Synchronous

Synchronous communication methods will require all participants to be online at the same time. This can be tricky with an online class. Students sign up for online classes for the flexibility in their schedules. Be sure to offer more than one of the same session on different days and at different times of the day so all students have opportunity to participate. Students can create collaborations and conferences in course groups as well.

Collaborations - Collaborations are a great way to help students improve their writing skills. Collaborations use GoogleDocs so you must link your Google Account with your Canvas account. Students will also need to link their Google account as well. Once the Collaboration is setup, students can write in the same document at the same time as well as chat with each other while they are writing in the document.
Big Blue Button - Big Blue Button (BBB) allows instructors to create online meetings for lecturing and offering online office hours.
Zoom - Zoom is an integrated third-party tool that is similar to Conferences. Zoom is recommended over Conferences because it performs better and has more features.
ChatLinks to an external site. - provides text based real time communication option.

Asynchronous

Asynchronous communication methods don't require all participants to be online at the same time. This is great for short messages, feedback, and answering questions. Instructors can encourage students to do the same so they receive these message in a timely manner. It may be a good idea to state in your syllabus that you will respond to these types of message with 24-48 hours so students don't expect instant responses. Students can also use announcements and discussions in course groups.

Adjust your Notifications - It is important to make adjustments to your notification settings so you receive notifications of any new replies from these types of messages.
Conversations/Inbox (Private Messages) - Conversations is a way to send private messages in Canvas. Depending on your notification settings you will receive a copy of the messages in your email.
Announcements - Announcements provide a way to get short messages quickly to your students. Once an announcement is sent students will receive a notification about the new announcement per their notification settings and the global and course dashboards. Announcements can be timed delayed as well. You can adjust the delay date for all announcements from one page using the Design Tools Announcement Delay Date Modifier. You can also bulk edit announcements as well. Instructors can choose to display announcements on the course home page. See the following guides.
- How do I show recent announcements in the Course Home Page?Links to an external site.
- Using the Multi Tool Delayed Announcement Modifier
Discussions - Discussions can be used as assessment tool or just for place for students to hang out in the course. When used as assessments, instructors can use a rubric to grade students' replies and give feedback. Non-graded discussion are good place to allow students to post frequently asked questions about course content.
Hypothesis - Similar to discussions but this option allows you to link a webpage or PDF document so the webpage or document can be annotated as a discussion. Students can annotate parts of the webpage or document and add comments. It can also be used synchronously as well.