The CATE System
Understanding, Building, and Teaching with Class Websites using SRJC's Computer-Assisted Teaching Environment

1. Introduction 2. Basic Concepts 3. Overall Structure 4. Personal Homepages 5. Course Homepages 6. Section Homepages 7. Images 8. Uploading Files 9. File Management Image-Picking Interface Link-Picking Interface 10. Nav Bars 11. Schedules Text-Entry Interface 12. Presentations 13. Tests and Exercises 14. Rosters and Student Management 15. Web Groups 16. Passwords and Authentication 17. Message Boards 18. Other Communications 19. Tools for Students 20. Gradebooks 21. The Next Step

18. Other Communications This lesson explains how to use other Web-based communication tools. Assignments Read the material on this page Follow the links and read the relevant Help material Introduction An online class -- or a Web-enhanced face-to-face class -- can utilize a wide variety of tools for communications between students and instructor as well as among students. Here are some of the possibilities. Face-to-face contact Telephone Reading webpages Listening to audio Watching video Submitting papers Direct student-instructor email Message List: Public messages Message List: Private messages Chat Room Instructor blogs Student blogs myNotes Texting module Of those, the class Message Board is always the most important means of communication in an online class, and communications should always be built around that module. Nevertheless, some other forms of communication can be useful, and this lesson outlines some of the possibilities. Chat Rooms Chat rooms are by nature synchronous rather than asynchronous. That means the communicating parties need to be participating at the same time, much as with a telephone. That's one of the key reasons why you should never rely on a chat room as a primary communications tool. Even so, you might want to experiment with chat rooms, and perhaps make them available to students who want to use them. Chat rooms are created and configured via the Chat Room module in a process very similar to creating and configuring Message Boards. Likewise, you will usually allow all the students from one section to participate in one chat room. A chat room will generally be configured for one of three basic purposes: A virtual classroom, where you deliver a live (text-based) lecture to a gathering of students An office, where students can communicate with you (usually one at a time) in real time A student lounge, where students communicate with each other as they see fit Because of the synchronous nature of chat, the system allows you to generate a transcript of a chat session, and you can create links to the transcript file for students who were unable to participate in the live session. For further information on creating, configuring, and using chat rooms, see these Help docs: Quick Guide for Chat Rooms: http://online.santarosa.edu/catedocs/guide_chat.html Help for Chat Rooms: http://online.santarosa.edu/catedocs/helpchat.html How to...Maintain a Chat Room: http://online.santarosa.edu/catedocs/howto_maintain_chat.html Using a Chat Room: http://online.santarosa.edu/catedocs/howto_chat.html In Box Students can submit electronic documents to you via the In Box, which is a tool you can place in a block on a presentation page. How to...Create an In-Box: http://online.santarosa.edu/catedocs/howto_create_inbox.html How to...Access Files Uploaded via an In-Box: http://online.santarosa.edu/catedocs/howto_accessfiles.html Instructor Blogs As the instructor, you can set up a blog on one or more presentation pages, and your students can respond to you directly via the blog page(s). How to...Use Instructor Blogs: http://online.santarosa.edu/catedocs/howto_instructor_blog.html Student Blogs You can set up student blogs on presentation pages, and your students can respond to each other directly via the blog pages. How to...Use Student Blogs: http://online.santarosa.edu/catedocs/howto_student_blog.html myNotes Although this might not really be a communications tool, you can configure the myNotes feature to allow students to enter, save, review, and edit online notes about your Web-based materials. How to...Use myNotes: http://online.santarosa.edu/catedocs/howto_mynotes.html Texting Module For those students interested in participating, you can utilize the Texting module to send text messages directly from your CATE account to their cell phones. Help for the Texting Module: http://online.santarosa.edu/catedocs/helptext.html Direct Student-Instructor Email We strongly encourage you to avoid using plain old email for communications with students except when all else fails. By keeping communications within the CATE system, all interactions can be saved, archived, and stored for future reference if necessary. If you just use your email account to communicate with the student, the CATE system can't include those messages in the archive. Furthermore, in many cases students will simply be asking questions that are better asked via a class Message Board so that everyone can see the question and everyone can see your reply. Even if the student-instructor communication needs to remain private, it's better to do that using the "private" messaging feature of the Message Board rather than moving it entirely outside the online classroom. Demonstration (For face-to-face sessions) We'll demonstrate how to create and use some of these other communication tools. Lecture slides: http://online.santarosa.edu/presentation/?9892 Sample Class Websites WWII 101 A plain-vanilla sample class website Rock 101 A fancier sample class website Feedback Please provide us with comments, corrections, and/or suggestion regarding this material. Be sure to identify the lesson and the material to which you're referring. Thanks for taking the time to help us improve these online training materials. CATE Online Training Feedback

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