Making initial contact with your students, even before your course officially begins, this is very important. There are three key ways to accomplish this. We've touched on them already, but will now go into greater detail.

The Pre-Course Email through Conversations

The pre-course email is a valuable tool for getting your students into the course, and directing them to the places (Modules and Syllabus) where they can become oriented to the course and your expectations. In this email, you can remind your students when their course opens, to look for any new Announcements as soon as they open the course to complete work and remind them they will need to complete the Syllabus Confirmation and Academic Integrity Acknowledgement and help ensure they're ready for your course on the first day. Don't forget to let your personality show through in the email. Most times this is the first interaction you may have with them. Select the Inbox tab in the left navigation bar whenever you want to send an email to the entire class, a group of students, or an individual student. When you send an email you will automatically receive a copy in your own LCNE email inbox.

115 - Conversations Overview from Canvas LMS on Vimeo.

Transcript for Conversations video

Your turn!

Take a moment to practice and by choosing the Inbox tab in the navigation menu at the left of the page, send your Instructor(s) a brief email telling how the course is going for you so far. The email tool will automatically populate the e-in the email and we ask that you place your name after your brief text message so we know who you are - we can't always tell from your email address. You'll quickly find that this is an essential requirement (student name) if you are running multiple courses or multiple sections of the same course.

Course Announcements

You can post Announcements using the left menu option. In addition to posting a Welcome Announcement that students see the first time they enter the course, you can also post additional announcements at any time during the course. In Module 4's Initial Student Contact, we'll talk more about Course Announcements.

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Introductory Discussion

Be an active participant in the Introduce Yourself and Get to Know Your Classmates discussion that is located in the first Module. As an instructor, it's always good to post first and break the proverbial ice so students have an idea of what's appropriate, how much to write and to even model their response from yours. This also increases the student-instructor interaction which is really critical to making an online course come alive!