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 students during the volatile drop/add period.

AsULearn’s Announcements (formerly News Forum) is a tool within every course created in AsULearn. Announcements will allow an instructor to post a message topic in the forum. Each post will then be automatically emailed to all class members (with 30 minutes 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 a feature added to each AsULearn course by default. This block will allow you to send email to the entire class, groups, or individual students. If the Quickmail block is not on your course site, a Teacher must add it from the Add a Block menu (a 3-click process). For instructions on how to use Quickmail see the guide here http://asulearnhelp.appstate.edu/support/quickmail-tutorial.

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 would have access to see previous Announcements posts but would not see the Quickmail history, which is available only to the instructor sending the message.