Communication & Collaboration

Mailing lists or listservs can be used to facilitate communication between you and your entire class with a single course email address, directly from your inbox. With Google Groups, you can request a mailing list for as long as the class is active (whether it’s a single or two term course).

 Learn more about Google Groups.

Discussion forums are a great way to increase collaboration and engagement, as it gives students an opportunity to voice their opinions and spark conversations without the time constraints of a physical classroom. Discussion forums give students who usually don’t feel comfortable speaking in front of a class a medium to respond in a written format, as well as process others’ responses to contribute a meaningful response.

 Learn how to create and modify discussion forums and topics in D2L.

For group assignments, students may benefit from being able to remotely collaborate on a document in real-time. Google Drive gives you the ability to do real-time collaboration with multiple document types. With Google Docs, you’ll have the capability to collaborate in real-time with peers on a report or in a classroom setting. For example, your entire class can simultaneously update a single Google Document file, while maintaining the ability to track all of the changes, view the history to see who made what change, and restore previous versions.

 Learn more about Collaboration with Google Docs.

There are multiple tools available to improve communication and collaboration between students for group projects and assignments; even when they cannot be in the same place at the same time.

 The D2L Brightspace Groups tool gives you the capability to organize groups automatically, manually or allow students to choose their own group; features such as file exchange, group discussions and more.

 Share the benefits and collaboration features of Google Docs with your students.

If you are looking to facilitate a collaborative activity for the whole class, Google Workspace offers a host of tools to help.

 Discover how to Facilitate a class collaborative activity using Google Workspace.