​April is almost over, and nobody wants one more thing to think about right now - which is exactly why we are rounding out this year's Tech Tuesday offerings with a SUPER-EASY, SUPER-FUN (and free! no account necessary!) tech tool.

Want to help your students be prepared for the first day of class but don't want to publish your Canvas course? Use the Course distribution list for your course section in Gmail! All courses get them once they are active in SIS. When you send an email this way any student that is registered for your course at the time will receive your message*! Remember to Blind Carbon Copy your students so that if they reply all the other students will not receive the email. This is the same as checking the box to send an individual message to students in Canvas. 
*This function remains available for 90 days after the semester ends, but you need to add ".completed" to the address. Example: 
Current Student Gmail Group: 
CGC.2021.Spring.BPC.110.21561@cgc.edu

Completed Student Gmail Group (students have been graded in SIS): 
CGC.2021.Spring.BPC.110.21561.completed@cgc.edu

Before I talk about some of the ways in which you can encourage student engagement with videos in your Canvas course, let’s talk just a bit about some video recording options as well.

When did online discussion boards get such a bad reputation that they became the target of internet memes?!

Discussion Boards have become an integral component of most online courses. The real question is - how effective are they in terms of supporting student learning? Could they be better?