Module 3: Online Communication

Online communication is an important part of a college education and something that you will utilize often during your time at school, especially if you are planning on taking some of your courses online instead of in-person. However, even if you do not take online classes and take them in a traditional classroom format, you will still use online communication often. Most professors at OSU use the Carmen website to organize and distribute information about the class, including syllabi, class notes, and study guides. Some classes even require students to post weekly discussion posts on the Carmen “discussion board” feature. Using effective communication skills is important for these discussion posts: they should be professional since you are not only interacting with peers, but with professors as well, and you should strive to make a good impression. This means using proper spelling and grammar and writing typically in a formal or business-like tone.

Some other online communication tools that you will probably use during college are email, Google Docs, and Doodle Polls. You will often need to email professors and other students, especially if you have group projects to work on. Doodle Polls are useful for scheduling a time when members of your group can get together to collaborate on your project. Since everyone at school is busy with different class, work, and extracurricular schedules, you will likely need to work on some aspects of group projects separately. Google Docs is a very useful tool for this since it allows everyone to access the same document, PowerPoint presentation, or Excel spreadsheet from their own computer. This will streamline the process of working on projects separately and prevent you from having to email your project back and forth and constantly update with other members’ changes. I have used Google Docs a lot throughout my time at OSU and it has been one of the most helpful online communication tools that I’ve had access to.

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