What are Mass Communication Tools?

Regardless of how large or small the class, it’s always helpful to be able to communicate en masse with your students. Mass communication tools are a broad category for tools that enable instructors to send out communications (emails, messages, information, notes, etc.) to a group of people (such as all students or a group of students in a class) at once. The focus of this page is upon mass communication tools specific to DC Connect.

What is the purpose of Mass Communication Tools?

Mass communication tools are designed to make it easier to get important messages out to a large group of people. In DC Connect, various mass communication tools serve unique purposes such as sending out course announcements or communicating with student groups. Use of mass communication tools can not only save instructor time, the tools can have positively impact student learning, engagement, and motivation (Baker, 2010; Putulowski & Crosby, 2017).

How to use Mass Communication Tools

In general, mass communication tools are intended to allow an instructor to author and send out a common message to all recipients. Most communication tools referenced on this page allow for two-way communication, enabling recipients to reply, indicate their preference, or communicate back to the instructor in some way. In DC Connect, each mass communication tool serves slightly different functionality. When choosing a tool for communicating to students, make sure that the tool you’ve selected adequately meets your intended goals.

Here are some ideas for how mass communication tools can be utilized for teaching and learning:

  • Use the Course Announcements, Activity Feed, and Intelligent Agents Tools to send out important messages about upcoming course events, deadlines, or activities.
  • Use the Email Tool to send private messages to individual students or a group of students (e.g. to communicate about group project work, to arrange office hour consults, etc.)
  • Use the Survey Tool to quickly survey the class on pertinent questions.