Pagers and Quizzes (In Progress)

If the quiz option is chosen to prevent use of the pager tool, that tool will be unavailable for students to use as long as that quiz attempt is in progress. This block perpetuates indefinitely, so it is possible for a student to be prevented from using the pager months after the semester ends in which the student did not complete the quiz attempt. When students in this situation try to use the pager, the system tells them the class that has the quiz attempt in progress. If the class was from a prior semester, it will require the instructor's help to remove the block.

Instructors can remove the block without making the entire class active by submitting the quiz on behalf of the student. This is explained in another blog entry.

Synchronous Communication

There are three options for synchronous communication with your students:

• One is to use the pager, which is a tool that appears in the navbar and works well for sending short messages. These messages are not visible to anyone except the sender and receiver(s).
• A second option is the chat tool, which is a tool you can link from the navbar. Everything typed into a chat window is logged and chat transcripts are available to everyone. Chat is text only.
• If you want rich-media synchronous communication, the best option is CCC Confer. This is a web-conferencing tool that includes a phone bridge and tools that allow you to share applications. Confer sessions can be archived. For more information, visit the CCC Confer web site: http://cccconfer.org