- Workspace: A Slack workspace is made up of channels, where members of the teaching team and students can communicate and work together.
- Channels: Slack organizes conversations into dedicated spaces called channels. Channels bring order and clarity to work—you can create them for any project, topic, or team. In Slack, channels can be public or private:
- Public channels promote transparency and inclusivity. Any member of your course’s Slack workspace can view and join a public channel, giving everyone access to the same shared information. Messages or files posted in a public channel can be searched by other members of your workspace.
- Private channels are for conversations that should not be open to all members. You must be added to a private channel by someone who’s already a member of the channel. Messages or files posted in a private channel can only be searched by members of that channel.
- Direct Messages: Direct messages (DMs) are smaller conversations in Slack that happen outside of channels. DMs work well for one-off conversations that don’t require an entire channel of people to weigh in, like if you wanted to ask a fellow member of the teaching team to reschedule a meeting.
- Mention (@mention): When you send a message and include an @mention, the person you mention will be notified. Type the @ sign followed by a member’s full name or display name.
- Threads: Threads help you create organized discussions around specific messages. They let you discuss a topic in more detail without adding clutter to a channel or direct message (DM) conversation.
- Notifications: Notifications in Slack keep you informed of the work you care about, whether you’re at your desk or on the move. Use the steps below to customize your desktop, mobile, and email notifications.
- By default, Slack enables “Do Not Disturb” mode every night from 10PM to 8AM to pause notifications. During these hours, Slack will not send you desktop, mobile, or email notifications. If someone tries messaging you, they will see a warning that you have “Do Not Disturb” on. They can override this by clicking an “urgent” link, but otherwise you will not get the message until after 8AM. You can customize when “Do Not Disturb” is on or turn it off completely in your notification settings.
For a list of all terms, refer to the Slack Glossary.
