Slack is what
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Slack cuts through the red tape and opens a judgment-free line of communication. And whether students know it or not, faculty members often judge students for violating unwritten rules about email correspondence, including salutations, deference and grammar. They have questions, but the formality of email creates a barrier, deterring students from reaching out. So, how will Slack change the way you teach?įirst, embrace informality! Students want to communicate with professors, but traditional office hours often don’t meet their needs. It also integrates well into our existing digital toolbox, with plug-ins for file-sharing sites and video conferencing. Slack has app platforms for mobile and computer devices and offers a variety of notification settings to control how often you hear from your team. Within your team hub, members can participate in channels (like chat rooms dedicated to specific conversations), threads (sidebars to main discussion) and direct messages. And unlike a 1990s chat room, you eliminate the creepy A/S/L icebreaker, because Slack is only open to your team - a class, small group or department. What is Slack? It’s a bit like ye olde chat room, but its purpose is to house and streamline your group’s communication. While our appreciation for Slack did not develop overnight, after experimenting in our in-person, distance-learning and online classrooms, we found a lot to love.
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The organizers nudged us to eschew traditional conference communiqué (emails or a table staffed with tired graduate students) and asked us to use Slack as a centralized hub for conversations, questions and file sharing. We first learned about it at the Humanities Intensive Learning and Teaching Conference in Austin, Tex., in June 2017. A quick Google search will show you hundreds of innovative tools to facilitate teaching and learning in digital spaces, and it’s easy to be overwhelmed.įor those of us looking to break through the limitations of learning management systems (such as Moodle, Blackboard, Canvas) without reinventing the wheel, Slack is an intuitive, flexible platform that allowed us to create more effective learning spaces. Every day there’s a new platform or upgrade to existing technology. Whatever type of classroom you find yourself in this fall, digital tools are increasingly important to our teaching repertoire.
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