Overview - Communicating with Students

Blackboard > Courses > Open course > Course tools > Announcements

• Best for communicating with the entire class

• Message is published to course announcements page

• If the option to immediately send an email is checked, the announcement will go directly to students' Outlook inboxes

• Instructor must remember to select the option to send as an email

Blackboard > Courses > Open course > Course tools > Course Messages

• Best for communicating to individual students within Blackboard

• Saves a history of sent and received messages

• It can be hard to tell which course a message has been received in

• Message content isn’t sent in an email. If students aren’t aware they have messages, it may be hard to reach them.

Blackboard > Courses > Open course > Course tools > Send Email

• Uses Blackboard’s course roster to send emails to students Outlook inbox

• You can email multiple students, single student, or entire roster

• You can send the email to your email address, but otherwise there are no records of emails sent and who received them

myBama > Faculty and advisors tab > Class Lists and Rosters > Summary Class List > Choose Term > Choose Course

• Emails are sent through your default email provider (Outlook, Mail)

• myBama directly opens your email provider and automatically adds student(s) emails to the Bcc field

• Outside of the Blackboard environment