Communication Guidelines

1. My welcome message through the portal will be delivered upon sign up to the course. It will introduce the course; my expectations; and of course, myself and contact information. I will have a link to Remind 101 for the student to sign up for the Remind of my class. Upon signup, the student will receive a welcome message explaining Remind 101 and the purpose of the text application.
2. Mass emails and messages are the same as I would put on the traditional white board or bulletin board in the tradition class. I would never post grades in mass emails or messages. I might remind students to check their emails for individual messages and grades. Example: "Students, your grade and feedback for your Scarcity project will be located in your dropbox, please access them and reply in the link provided if you have any questions. Great job, everyone!"
3. Personal notes are just that personal notes. In a traditional classroom, I would never have a student conference at the front of the class in front of everyone. I would never print a class list and grades for everyone to see. Common sense is key when it comes to the privacy of the student.
4. Stakeholders would be involved in the process of the student's performance and success, but I would limit the messages and emails to all stakeholders to ones that are on a need to know basis. I would not flood an administrator's emails with reminders of the next test or that grades are now located in their dropbox.
5. In the orientation piece of my courses, I will have each student process a module on the needs and rules of communication with school and district policies. Similar to the "course book" or "sign off sheets" that students would receive at the beginning of the semester, the online student would receive the same information and process.
6. The tools involved would be explained through orientation. Links and sign ups, like Remind 101 would go through a module similar to a lesson module. I would also require every student to go through the orientation before they can begin the course. All of this should be done no later than the first week of instruction.