Instructions on the best way to email a class.
The best way to email students in your class is to use AsULearn’s Announcements or QuickMail block since these do not require the setup of a mailto: handler or email client. AsULearn is synchronized with Banner so you can be sure that you are contacting ALL your registered students during the volatile drop/add period. With each of these AsULearn options, a record of your communication (forum post or email) is retained in the course. It is important to note that students have access to see previous Announcements posts, but will not see the Quickmail history, which is available only to the instructor sending the message.
Announcements (formerly News Forum) is a tool within every course created in AsULearn. Instructors post a message topic in the forum and the post will then be automatically emailed to all class members with a 30-minute delay to give you time to edit, or within 5 minutes if you check the option: Send forum post notifications with no editing-time delay). For more detailed instructions see the AsULearn guide Announcements Forum (formerly News Forum)
The Quickmail block is added to each AsULearn course by default. Send email to the entire class, groups, or individual students. If the Quickmail block is not visible on your course site, a Teacher must add it.
Step-by-step guide to Add Quickmail block
The Quickmail block is not available in the Student view.
- From the main course page, click the gear menu (top right) and select Turn editing on
- Click the hamburger icon (top left) to open the drawer menu and select Add a block at the bottom.
- Select Quickmail from list of blocks. If it is not in the list, it is already turned on for your course.
To Use the Quickmail Block
To Send Quickmail
- Locate the Quickmail block on the main course page.
- Click Compose Course Message
- Click the dropdown list for Who should receive this message? Selections include All in Course, roles (everyone in the course who has that role), groups, and individuals by name.
- Click items in the list to add them to the To address field.
- To remove an item, click the × on the nameplate in the To field.
- Click the dropdown list for Who should NOT receive this message? to Exclude anyone that is included in your selections above. For example, to send a message to everyone in the Apples group except Woodhugh Bugoff, select Apples (Group) to receive the message (previous step), and then select Woodhugh to be excluded from receiving it, because Woodhugh is a member of Apples.
- In the message area, enter a Subject for you message and compose the email you want to send. Apply the optional settings below.
- You can use data fields in the Body of your message to be replaced by the users' or course's corresponding data, e.g., [:fullname;] will be replaced in the email with each user's full name.
- You can select one or more files to be Attached to the message.
- You can use a message Signature (your name and additional information formatted like you want) that you have set up.
- Send message as an Email to be delivered to each user's email account, or Moodle mail to be delivered to each user's AsULearn Messaging drawer.*
- Send at a later date and time; click Enable, then set date and time for message to be sent.
- Select Yes to Receive a send report. You can View Sent Messages from the Quickmail block. Click View by a message to view the message and its delivery report.*
* Your preference for default selection can be set under Configuration for the Quickmail block.
- Click the Send Message button to send or schedule sending your message. Click Save Draft to save what you have composed and return to it later. Or click Cancel to abandon the message entirely.
Students can reply to these email messages and the replies will go to your email account. NOTE: Unlike the Announcements Forum, when you send Quickmail, there is no student-accessible copy of the message posted in the course. You, as the teacher, have access to your Quickmail "history," but the messages you send to students are only sent to their Appstate Gmail account and will only be visible there.