Tips on How to Communicate Remotely with Students
We’ve put together some helpful tips for communicating with students as you work with them remotely, whether that be in your role as instructor, advisor, or student service provider. Below you’ll find options for regular emails, online chats or web meetings, and regular phone calls. (The Canvas instructions are for faculty interactions with students in their courses; all other methods can be employed for any type of interaction with students – whether individually or in groups.)
Options for Communicating with Students
Email
It is recommended that emails be sent through your Goucher email or Canvas. Using
a personal email address makes it harder for students to manage their course-related
email and to avoid losing messages in spam or junk filters.
- Send emails through your Goucher Office365 account
- Send an Announcement to all course students at once through Canvas
- Send an email to one or more students through Canvas
Canvas Course Chat
The Canvas Chat tool can be used for real-time conversation with users enrolled in a course. Any user in the course can participate in a chat conversation and view all chat content. You may consider posting chat hours in the course calendar to let students know when you are available. You can also open Chat in a new browser window while viewing other areas in Canvas.
Web Meetings with Zoom
With Zoom, you and your students can see one another, hear one another, share your desktops, and much more all in real-time. Meetings can also be recorded for sharing later. Goucher provides all faculty and students with a basic account for free. Basic accounts have a 40-minute-per-meeting limit, although the number of meetings overall is unlimited. Faculty can request an upgrade from the IT Help Desk for longer meeting times if needed.
- Click “Sign-In” at http://goucher.zoom.us to get started
- Use Zoom’s Mobile apps for Apple IOS and Android phones and tablets to connect to Zoom meetings by phone or tablet in addition to a web browser on a computer/laptop
- Skip the webcam and join Zoom meetings by phone only if desired - Zoom meeting information provides phone numbers to call plus a meeting ID to connect to the meeting by phone
- Share some Basic Zoom Instructions for Attendees ahead of time
- Be sure to visit https://support.zoom.us to view popular tutorials and videos (the One Minute Video Introductions are particularly useful)
- Contact Zoom for technical assistance at https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/201362003-Zoom-Technical-Support - Our IT Help Desk only assigns users, so it might be useful to bookmark this page for future use
Phone
- Typing in *67 before making a call will not send your phone number and caller ID information. However, please be sure to alert the caller ahead of time about when you are planning to call. People tend to not answer phone calls when they don’t recognize the caller ID.
- Google allows you to set up a Google Voice account for your cell phone number so that the caller will not be viewing your personal cell phone number during the call.
What if I have a question or if I need technical assistance?
You can contact the Help Desk by email helpdesk@goucher.edu, visit https://www.goucher.edu/it, or call or text 410-337-6322 from 9am to 5pm, Monday through Friday.