When I began teaching online courses 4-5 years ago , I developed a heavy reliance upon the use of emails to keep in contact with students. During this ‘pre-Blackboard’ era at The University of Findlay, there were limited options regarding how instructors could communicate with students and send course-related materials. Here are a number of ways I made use of email to enhance communication with my students:

• Built an address book for each course that included multiple email accounts (work and home) for each of the students (very time-consuming at the beginning of each semester!);
• Had students send project, paper, book report ideas, etc. to me for discussion and approval;
• Reviewed rough drafts of first writing assignments and sent back via email critique and recommendations;
• Sent supplemental course materials (as attachments) to students;
• Provided students with a weekly update (usually sent on Sundays) of what was coming up in the course, various due dates, and other relevant course-related activities and assignments;
• Sent students’ grades for each assignment completed and a final email with their grade for the semester and feedback on their job performance;
• MOST IMPORTANTLY – I used email as a device to let students know that there was a HUMAN BEING attached to the instructor end of their internet course! My communications with students always had a ‘business/course-related’ main element, but I also used these communications as a method to get to know my students better. The use of humor (so much great material for laughter in a Public Finance/Budgeting course!), mention of travel plans, or even a discussion of the weather assisted in loosening up the email dialogue. In our more traditional courses, faculty members make use of office hours, pre and post-class time, and a host of other venues to develop comfortable and positive informal dialogue with students. It is my feeling that the same opportunities should be available for the on-line courses.

If an instructor is willing to take the time to engage in these types of exchanges, here is the type of feedback, one can anticipate:

It has been a great pleasure working with you over the last few quarters. Your teaching approach worried me during the first class I had with you, for it required not only reading and understanding the material, but required that we looked at both sides of any issue as well in order to make good decisions. The ability for me to use this technique in workplace has already proven invaluable to me.

I have never had a class online, over satellite, compressed video, or physically in the classroom where a professor's personality shined through as yours did. You were professional, funny, compassionate, concerned, and seemed truly interested in us as students. (email from student in the UF MBA program)

There are certainly wonderful, sophisticated, new tools and methods that have the potentiality for increasing the effectiveness of how our course information is communicated and delivered. However, we also need to take a measured approach to all of this new technology; do not let original pedagogical objectives, instincts and practices be pushed aside and overwhelmed by all of the buttons, bells, and whistles. Blackboard and other instructional enhancements are simply that…methods/tools that allow us to accomplish teaching/learning goals we may have set for ourselves and our students 10, 20 or even many more years ago.