Establishing tone using email - establishing tone

Email is often used to communicate to students in a distance course. Students and instructors exchange information, assignments, and multiple other items; making email an important conduit between instructors and students.

Email can be easily personalized to help establish tone. One of the things that distance learners complain about is being isolated. A friendly greeting or salutation on an email message can mean a great deal to a student. With the copy and paste functions available on almost all systems, general messages can easily be personalized and sent individually to students. Adding the student's name or including a message about something mentioned in earlier correspondence is perceived positively by students.

How do you feel when you are on the receiving end of a message with a subject line: Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re: Stuff?

Tips

• Require students to confirm their email address by creating an assignment early in the course requiring them to acknowledge receipt of a message from you. Assign a minimal amount of points for the assignment.
• Use the testing features of Blackboard to gather contact information about students.
• Create generic emails that you can personalize by changing the name and send these to students individually.
• Use the Discussion Area and Announcement for general communication to all students
• Create standard email responses (I received your assignment, reminders about exams or assignments, instructions, etc.) in your word processor and keep the file handy on your desktop.
• Print out your student introduction activity on the discussion board (use the Collect function). Use some of the information provided by the students to personalize email messages throughout the semester.