• Agenda
• Participants
• Promises
• Problems
• Syllabus 
• Disciplinary Resources 
• Text
• E-Mail 
• Discussion Groups
• Assignments
• Exams-Quizes
• Projects
• On-Line Reading 
• Internet Skills 
• Simple Ways to Start 
• Web-Authoring 
• Web Design
• Frames

E-mail communication among students and between students and you should be one of the easier course elements to include. 

Requiring E-mail accounts: 

Consider requiring each student to get an e-mail account by a certain deadline in the first week or two of the semester and send you an e-mail message to confirm that they have an account. If you make e-mail optional, many students won't participate and you'll have trouble using this course element in significant ways. 

Requiring use of e-mail: 

Consider requiring everyone to check their e-mail at least once a week (or more frequently), so you can rely on this as a method of communication with the class. Put this requirement in writing somewhere if you expect to send out information required to successfully complete the course. 

Encouraging use of e-mail: 

E-mail is a good way for you to get in touch with students with problems, absences, missing work, etc. As the semester progresses, many will see e-mail as an opportunity to communicate with you in ways they hadn't considered before during traditional office hours. Another way to get students to see the usefulness of e-mail is to send out a "mass e-mail" a few days before class with reminders about plans for the class, corrections and updates in your assignments, etc. 

Training: 

Even e-mail requires training for the technology beginners in your class. Either arrange a class in a campus lab or see if the library's training workshop schedule would meet your needs. Then require students to attend the appropriate training. 

Class e-mail list: 

Consider putting your class e-mail list on-line on your web page, so students can easily find each other's addresses. You can also set up the list with a hyperlink on each name/address for "mail to:…", so all they have to do is click on the link and they will be put into a netscape mail screen. (Anything you can do to make this beginner-friendly will help.) 

Also consider setting up a "mass e-mail" hyperlink, for a pre-addressed mail screen for all the students in your class. This is essentially a home-made list-serv set up for the class by you. If your campus permits faculty to set up a list-serv (not all do), that might be easier for you to set up. 

Students change e-mail frequently during the semester as they subscribe to various commercial services or change services. By putting the class list on your Web page you can continually update the list, without the expense of typing and xeroxing the list. Also, by putting the list only on-line, you force beginners to look at the class web site. 
 

Examples:

• Class e-mail List

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