Communication Tools
Announcements, Calendar and Messages are commonly used communication tools in course and project sites. They are called "synoptic tools" because they display at-a-glance recent communications in the course. Information in these tools are also pushed to participants' My Workspace area and show new activity immediately upon logging into Sakai.
This tutorial demonstrates
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Announcements tool
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Calendar tool (also called "Schedule")
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Messages tool
Key concepts
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The layout of a site home page is set. You are unable to change the “blocks” that display. However, the benefit is that these tools serve as a visual reminder for your participants
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You can push email notifications from Announcements.
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Using the tools allow you to maintain a record of course communications.
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Announcements, Calendar and Messages tools push content to participants' My Workspace.
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Note that there are other communication tools in Sakai; these are most commonly used.
Common questions
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Announcements, Calendar and Messages tools are all "group aware" so that you can communicate specifically to sections and groups. (See more about group-awareness in Related Resources below)
Related resources
Doctors Kurt Gilliland and Ed Kernic in the School of Medicine discusses how they are using the Calendar tool in their course.
Announcements
Calendar
Sakai 5 Big Ideas
