An instructor needs to communicate with students frequently, provide substantive feedback, and communicate well with technology. The instructor should be an active participant, bring their own experiences to the discussion, do not dominate a discussion, or let a few students dominate it, challenge students without silencing them, and paraphrase a message if it is not clear. At a minimum, the teacher should include instruction on netiquette. Netiquette, which is short for Internet etiquette, is most important. It involves civility or politeness, professionalism, courtesy, respect, consideration, and good manners. Netiquette includes rules for all aspects of the Internet, including the World Wide Web, e-mail, instant messaging, chat rooms, newsgroups, and message boards. Dr. Marcia L. Brown, PMP

At times it is difficult to get student to follow the rubric. They often times debate the scores that were given and it can be challenging to explain to them why they received a certain score, since discussions are subjective, in most cases. How do you go about explaining to students why they received a low score, when posts are sometimes subjective? Mrs. Mitchell

Having the Baby Boomers, Generation X, and Millennials in one class can be a challenge. I have found that having each student to do introductions including what they think will be the most challenging for them in an online course. This initiates student's willingness to assist one another and it has worked quite well. What are other suggestions that may be able to help me? Thank you Letrice Mitchell

I often times have those student who are quite demanding on day 1. It can be difficult to get them to conform to proper communication but after weeks of speaking with them, it may be a personal issue going on. But, there habits have ruffled the feathers of other students. How do anyone else, handle students when they begin a course with negative behavior? Letrice Mitchell

Successful e-mails begin with TO, FROM, SUBJECT, and DATE and they usually only cover one topic. They are written conversationally and concisely. Prior to sending the message, collect information, prepare an outline, and compose the first draft in a Word document. The subject line summarizes the central idea, the body explains and provides more information, and the closing includes action information with dates or deadlines, and a summary of the e-mail. If the e-mail is constructed correctly, then is will be a technology tool for effective communication. Dr. Marcia L. Brown, PMP

One thing I find very powerful is to send outreach notes each week after I do grades. While it takes a little longer ( but only 5-10 minutes per class) I sent out individual ones that address them by their first name Such as Dear Joe, ..... They seem to respond really well to this, if you take the time to respond to them by name they realize this is not just a form email (even if the body is) and you really do care. Many students respond positively to this small factor.

Several online colleges are introducing new apps for their school. These can be neat in that you can check in on the go from a tablet or smart board. However I find when students use these apps their quality of discussion posts goes WAY down. All of a sudden you see grammar and spelling errors and text speak start to slip in. I try to make it clear that expectations are the same for writing level for apps or posts made from web browsers but they jump into this more informal frame of mind. Does anyone else see this happening?

One of the hardest things I think to manage online is group projects. This is where students tend to get snarky or have an attitude if they feel they are doing more or people are not pulling their own weight. I usually have very few problems elsewhere on the discussions or within the class. Does anyone else find this to be the case?

I teach math classes that involve many tutorial math videos. From showing how to solve equations to using excel the videos are a powerful way to reach students when you cannot be there yourself. However I find just hosting these on youtube means the students don't use them, they don't want to sort through dozens of videos. Instead I have been sorting them all using a live binder, this free Web site allows you to sort things into categories (for shorter classes I tend to do each week) and place just the videos there for that week, then they can easily access them. This gives me a great way to communicate all of these external resources to my students.

What are Best Practices for enhancing the technical skills for those students who are not familiar with technology?

Are there any icebreakers available to help bridge the communication gap between baby boomers and millenials?

Is it appropriate for students to text the instructor? If so, what circumstances would a text be more appropriate than an email?

Since the University does not provide student ages, it’s difficult to identify student generation. I always include an introductions thread and sometimes students share some information that allows me to make a guess as to the age of the student. Also when reading students discussion participation and research papers I tend to get an idea as to the age of the student. This information becomes part of a spreadsheet that I create before the start of the course (i.e. student name, email, phone (if available), guessed age, level of course participation, comments (i.e. needs increasing discussion participation, always late with assignments, Turnitin high scores, will be late with assignments, etc…) How to you manage your communication tone (identify student age) when you have 100+ students per semester? What is your approach?

Once I make a commitment to facilitate online course, I am committed to 7-day course presence. I am an early person so my interaction is usually in the morning—I make sure to tell students. One way I interact with students is through the discussion threads. I usually take the initiative to start contributing to the discussions on Sundays (lessons starts on Mondays). I do not respond to each post students make, but rather every other post along with posting questions related course subject matter being discussed that week. Would be interested to know your approach to course discussions; what is your level of contribution.

One of the quiz questions was to call students via telephone to introduce myself (instructor) and to provide a course overview to student. Does anyone do take this approach? I personally never thought to do so since I facilitate 3-4 courses per term thus usually have an average of 100+ students (this would be impractical…) What is your view?

How do you engage students to distinguish between the importance of the number of responses and comments from the importance of the quality of the comment? Are there any circumstances where the quantity of responses should carry more weight than the quality of responses?

Should students be reminded of the rubric throughout the course?

What are some techniques that professors could utilize if they run into issues with students that believe they should be available 24/7.

What are some of the tactics that some of you utilize when dealing with a student that is abrasive?

Would creating a Facebook page give students the wrong impression regarding their instructors "professionialism"?