Slack for Classroom Management

I love the first day of class and a new semester!  It represents a time to connect with new students, experiment with new ways to teach material, implement/refine active teaching strategies, and start a new Workspace in Slack.  Wait, what?  

For those who don’t know Slack, it is my pleasure to introduce you.  Slack is a self-contained communication tool that is ideal for managing messages, files, and almost all other forms of digital shareables.  If you are familiar with and enjoy GroupMe, then you already understand the basic functionality of Slack.  They both allow for streamlined communication among groups; however, Slack is a more business-friendly tool due to its advanced document capabilities, search functionality, professional user interface, and multitude of app integrations.

To set up my classes, I create different “Workspaces” (Slack’s terminology).  Each Workspace is given a name which is usually the class name, semester, and year.  For example, Economics of Innovation Fall 2018.  Slack then allows you to invite students to the Workspace with an email link or you can input student emails directly into the Workspace.  Once students download the app on their devices, create their log-in credentials, they will be allowed to enter the Workspace.  Of course, the Workspace creator controls the flow of students.  Teachers can even remove students from Workspaces they may have accidentally joined.

Privacy is very important.  Slack has made major strides regarding the maintenance of user data. Additionally, to keep the tool more suitable for professional use, Slack recently updated its privacy policies to make it easier for Slack Workspace creators to download and store user data.  This may seem like a drawback, but I view it as a positive because it reinforces Slack as a “work collaboration tool, not a private messaging app.”  By the way, I would not recommend having discussions about student grades and certainly not posting student grades in Slack. 

For the classroom, Slack is a major win for four reasons:

1. Forget email.  Students can send group messages and direct message teachers individually.  In any given day during the semester, I used to receive upwards of 50 email messages, many of which from students.  Managing these messages and trying to be highly responsive was a real chore particularly when trying to figure out how to prioritize messages that were time-sensitive. Slack solved this problem.  There are great tools out there for email management (Spark, Airmail, and Gmail Mobile to name a few), but they all suffer from the same constraints - they don’t allow for simple group chats, resource sharing over the long run, robust search features, and certainly by comparison email does not increase productivity.  Slack is a tool that combines the best of email, texting, and instant messaging.
2. Organize like a fool.  Slack allows for the creation of “channels,” which are basically separated categories for class work such as papers, groups, quizzes, or homeworks.  Channels are the perfect tool to keep things tidy as the semester progresses.  I tend to require papers in my classes.  Therefore, creating a paper channel keeps paper-related conversations separate from our recent written discussions about economic growth in China.  For students who have trouble keeping things organized, Slack helps them see the course from a wider view, so they can select where to concentrate their energies next without forgetting major class activities.  For super-organized students, Slack provides users the ability to create additional personalized channels that are private to them.  In past classes, students have created a “tutorial session” channel in which they peer instruct one another and organize tutorial meeting times.
3. Integrations baby.  Ok, now this is the best thing about Slack.  You can integrate so many other additional apps within the Slack interface.  This means you don’t have to leave Slack to accomplish other tasks related to your class.  For example, I have my Twitter account integrated into some of my Slack channels. Whenever I tweet something out that’s relevant to the class, it shows up directly in Slack.  Other integrated apps that are useful in the classroom are: Dropbox and Google Drive for sharing documents, Google Calendar for keeping students aware of upcoming assignments, Trello for task management of projects, and Zoom for video conferencing.
4. Calls and video.  With a simple app integration, you can use Slack for video chats with students.  You can also receive phone calls from students directly through the Slack app.  This is great if there is an important matter to quickly discuss and you don’t want to share your private phone number.  Calling through the app does not require the student or the teacher to share phone numbers.

Sadly, at the end of each semester, I archive or shut down the class Workspace since we are no longer active in Slack.  I do warn students first and give them a few weeks to retrieve any information they deem important.  This again highlights the strong search functionality in Slack.  Overall, students have found Slack to be a friendly tool and useful for classroom management.  It works especially well for improving my response time and keeping a record of my conversations with individual students or groups.  

No software is perfect and Slack does have a few competitors - the closest I would argue is now Microsoft Teams.   Also, there are a few items I’d like to see Slack add in the future, such as integration with Apple’s calendar app, an attendance tool, and better student response software integration.  

For my money, though, Slack wins hands down for all the features it brings to the classroom.  Speaking of my money, Slack has never received any.  It’s free for all to use, with some limitations that I’ve never faced.  If I ever do come across them, I would consider upgrading to the paid tier.  

Come on now, give Slack a try and thank me later.

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