Communicating with Students

Owned by Justin Aakre
Last updated: Jan 26, 2024
3 min read

There are a variety of means to communicate with students. It can be beneficial to understand the pros and cons of each.


Email via Gmail

Standard email can be a very effective way to communicate with select students instead of the entire class. 

Setting up an email for an entire class:

  1. Go to the Participants page
  2. Check the box on the left side next to each student you would like to email
    1. If you are emailing the entire class, check the box above the first student. This will select all users
  3. At the bottom, select Microsoft Excel (.xlsx) from the With selected users... dropdown menu
  4. Open the downloaded .xlsx file
  5. Highlight all the emails within the .xlsx file and copy them
  6. Open up Gmail and compose a new message
  7. Paste the emails into the recipients 
    1. If emailing large amounts of students, use BCC for all recipients so that individual replies don't go to everyone in the class
  8. Write the contents of the email and send

Pros: 

  • Ability to communicate with individual or groups of students
  • Ease of use
  • History of conversations can be found as long as messages are archived
  • Search functionality 
  • Allows you to schedule when email is sent

Cons: 

  • Requires setup for creating email groups
  • Could get lost in the shuffle if many emails are received daily
  • Stored outside of the Moodle course site
  • History of communication is hosted outside of Moodle


Moodle Message

Using Message within Moodle is also a great way to communicate with students. Message is an instant messaging tool built within Moodle. It can be accessed by the talk bubble in the top right corner next to your name. 

Starting a Message:

  1. Go to the Participants page
  2. Check the box on the left side next to each student you would like to message
  3. At the bottom, select Send a Message from the With selected users... dropdown menu
  4. Write the message in the pop-up text box
  5. Click on Send message

Once the student replies, you will get a red indicator in the top right of Moodle notifying you of unread Messages.

Pros:

  • Send single messages to students
  • Send the same message to only a few students
  • Hosted in Moodle

Cons:

  • Difficult to navigate
  • History is not well organized


Announcements 

Announcements is a teacher-only forum that is included at the top of every Moodle page. It is a special type of forum that has Subscription Forced by default. The subscription setting determines if a member of the course will receive an email. Announcements are great for general communication to the entire class. 


Posting Announcements:

  1. Open up the Announcement forum
  2. Click on Post to Forum
  3. Add a Subject
  4. Add the Message
  5. Click on Advanced to add any attachments or change the display period
  6. Click on Post to forum

Scheduling Announcements (for future date)

  1. Click on Advanced (next to the Post to Forum and Cancel buttons). 
  2. Change the Display Start setting, an announcement can be created for a future date. 

Pros: 

  • Allows you to provide information to the entire class at one time
  • Allows you to create weekly announcements prior to semesters and schedule when they are sent
  • Leaves trail for faculty or students to refer to within the course
  • An email will be sent even when the course is not visible to students
  • Hosted in Moodle

Cons: 

  • Students have the ability to change their personal notification settings. This means that the rest of the class may get the email, but the particular student may not.
    • A user can check/change the notification setting by clicking on the down arrow next to their name in the top right, choosing Preferences, choosing Notification Preferences from the list of options, and changing the settings underneath the Forum.
  • Entire class can see message so not appropriate for individual student communication