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Using Announcements

Why?

• Announcements are the most visible location in the course for providing general and time sensitive information to the class.
• Announcements appear in the course but also appear on the students’ TWU Blackboard page, if the Announcements module is enabled.
• Announcements are most effective if used to announce important information to the entire class (i.e., time sensitive information, reminders of due dates, notice that content has changed, announcing that exams have been posted in the gradebook, etc.).
• We encourage regular announcements on a weekly basis to norm students to expect communication and information about the course on a regular basis.
  • Students begin to get used to seeing information from the instructor on a specific date and at a specific time.

Implications for Teaching and Learning.

• Instructors can set announcements to be permanent, non-permanent, or to display after a certain date and to remain on the current announcements page until a certain date.
• We Do NOT encourage a mixture of permanent and non-permanent Announcements because the non-permanent Announcements always appear beneath the permanent. This may cause a problem if you mix permanent and non-permanent announcements in the same course. Students glancing at the page may not see the new announcement and may miss important information.
  • There is a tendency for students to discount Announcements if they are seeing the same Announcements at the top of the Announcements screen.
    • The assumption is that there is nothing new regarding Announcements
• Instructors have the option to push Announcements out to students via email.
  • We encourage you to use this feature for only the most important Announcements or to query the class and determine if this feature makes it convenient for those traveling to remain informed when away from their desktop. 

Promising Practices for TWU.

• Set all Announcements to either all permanent or all non-permanent.
• Permanent Announcements will have no end date unless the Display Until option is used. Remember that if you set end dates for Announcement, they become unavailable and can’t be seen by student users.
• Provide clear explanation in the course explaining on how to use the tabs found in the Announcements section. These Tabs (View Today, View Last 7 Days, View Last 30 Days, and View All) contain all of the posted Announcements unless you physically remove an Announcement.
• Provide explanation, early in the course, explaining how you will use Announcements and how you will use the email feature.
• Remember that removing an Announcement is irreversible.

How?

1. Go to Control Panel / Course Tools / Announcements
2. To Add an Announcement, click Add Announcement
3. To modify an Announcement, locate the announcement you wish to modify, click Modify 

Links for More Ideas. Note: This may take you to another section in this set of resources or to other TWU resources.

Announcements

• This will take you to the tools section of the wiki -- detailed step-by-step instructions for using this feature and more ideas for how to make this tool work for you.

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