For a low-tech method that you can use outside of Zoom, perhaps for office hours, try the Canvas Chat feature. It’s not very complicated, but you can have it turned on in your class to use as an option for virtual office hours or for a quick full-class brainstorm. When enabled in the course Navigation menu, Chat is available for use by anyone in the class. Note that there is no direct messaging in Canvas chats. Everyone in the course can access the Canvas chat history and students cannot delete chat comments.
Here’s a link to Canvas’ chat overview page developed by UITS: https://app.teaching.iu.edu/tools/canvas-chat and here’s a short tutorial video about the chat function: https://vimeo.com/78177139
You can start a chat for office hours by saying something like “Hi everyone! I’m working through some of the practice questions you have in preparation for our upcoming quiz. I’m happy to answer any questions you might have. I hope you’re all having a productive afternoon!” If you turn on audio alerts, you will hear a tone if Chat is open in Canvas but is not the active browser window, allowing you to be available to your students while you continue to work on other tasks.
Another plus to using the chat function is that questions are kept in a semi-public space and out of your inbox. This way all students in the course can benefit from seeing the questions and answers, which helps them, and you (hopefully) don’t receive multiple emails about the same question.
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