Contacting Students Using Technology
There are often times you need to contact a student — possibly all of the students — maybe just one. Hopefully by the end of this article you will have an understanding of how to make that contact using technology.
Student email addresses
Every registered student at Tyndale receives a student email address. The standard email address is their [lastname][firstname] (up to 11 characters) @students.tyndale.ca. For example — John Smith would be smithjohn@students.tyndale.ca -or- Martha Anderson would be andersonmar@students.tyndale.ca. Names with -’s have had the -’s removed — for example: John-Mark Lee = leejohnmark@students.tyndale.ca
One by One
Now you are free to guess all you want but we thought you may like something a little more accurate then that. If you are a faculty or staff at Tyndale and have access to the IntraNet you can login and go here: www.tyndale.ca/IntraNet/student_it — You can search for students by first name or last name or even try their full name. There are some great search tips on the page you can read before making your search!
You can also search right in your GroupWise address book! Just open the address book and look for the “Novell LDAP Address Book” option on the left hand side. Once in that address book you can find any students email address by doing a search on their name.
[tip] This LDAP option needs to be installed on your computer and has already been done on most — if you do not see the LDAP option please open your Novell deliver applications window and click on “GW Student Email” to install it.
If you would like to contact an individual student you can use either of the search tools above — find the student you are looking for – and send off your email. Want to make a class list? You can search through and copy the addresses you need into a GroupWise address book list.
All Students
So you need to have your message sent out to all the Tyndale students? No problem. There are actually a couple of ways to do this:
#1 — The students web site — surf on over to http://students.tyndale.ca and click on “Submit Campus News” Once you are here you just need to fill out the web form and click on “Submit News” Your news item will be moderated and posted by a member of the IT team. You will need to choose a news tag — this is like a category that you would like your message to be posted in. You can also choose a date to have your news posted — this means you can post today and have it appear on the site at a date in the future. The student web site is the default page on the student lab computers which gives you great exposure.
#2 — Global email request — If you have access to the IntraNet you can make a request to send a mass email to all Tyndale students. All of these messages are sent to all students regardless of whether they are in the University College or the Seminary. To send a request please login to the IntraNet and click on “Global Email to Students” in the menu. Complete the form and click on “Submit Email”. This email is moderated and will usually go out the same day it is submitted. We do not allow attachments to go out with these emails so please make sure you write everything you need to communicate directly in the email.
If you want to connect with all Tyndale students I would recommend you use both ways listed above. If you only wish to do one I would suggest using the web site. If you prefer to not use technology then maybe try screaming in the halls… ok the technology way is definitely easier!
If you have any questions or need help with any of the above please feel free to contact any one of the Tyndale IT team who will be happy to walk you through the steps.